Egypt on Wednesday called for a legally binding deal with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd), saying the Nile’s water is an “existential issue”.
Cairo fears the dam, which is nearly 80 per cent complete, would deeply reduce its vital share of the river's water.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah El Sisi made the comments during talks in Cairo with Burundi's president, Evariste Ndayishimiye. Egypt and Burundi are among 11 countries covered by the Nile's drainage basin.
“It’s an existential issue that impacts the lives of millions of Egyptians,” Mr El Sisi said.
“It is necessary that a legally binding agreement regulating the filling and operation of the dam be reached as soon as possible away from unilateral actions that seek to create a fait accompli and ignore people’s basics rights.”
The Egyptian leader was referring to Ethiopia's intention to go ahead with a second and much larger filling of the Gerd in July, regardless of whether a deal has been reached with Egypt and fellow downstream nation Sudan.
Mr El Sisi has only once before described the Gerd's likely impact on Egypt's share of the Nile water as an existential issue.
The second filling will involve 13.5 billion cubic metres – nearly three times the size of the first filling last year.
That disrupted work in several of Sudan’s water treatment facilities but had no impact on Egypt, as flooding had filled its Aswan dam reservoir close to capacity.
Egypt and Sudan have for years been trying to persuade Ethiopia to enter a deal that governs the operation of the dam and puts in place mechanisms to resolve disputes and the handling of persistent drought.
Ethiopia says non-binding guidelines should be sufficient.
With a population of 100 million people almost entirely dependent on the Nile for fresh water, Egypt has been alarmed by the prospect of a deep cut in its share of the river’s water.
It fears a reduced share would wipe out tens of thousands of jobs and disrupt its delicate food supply system.
Sudan maintains that it could suffer deadly flooding and a disruption of its own power-generating Nile dams if Ethiopia did not share real-time data on the operation and filling of the dam, which stands less than 20 kilometres from its border with Ethiopia.
In response to Ethiopia’s perceived intransigence, Sudan and Egypt have been forging closer ties in recent months, exchanging top-level visits, building a rail link between the two nations and incorporating Sudan in Egypt’s electricity grid. The two have also signed a military co-operation pact.
Separately, Sudan and Ethiopia are locked in a border dispute that has led to a string of deadly clashes between the two sides that have raised the prospect of a border war.
The clashes followed a move by the Sudanese military late last year to wrest back control of a border enclave long settled by Ethiopian farmers and protected by federal troops and allied militias.
Ethiopia says it will not negotiate a resolution of the dispute until Sudan pulls out from the areas it has retaken. It has also accused the Sudanese military of escalating the dispute for the benefit of its Egyptian allies.
But Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared to have softened his position on the dispute in comments made on Tuesday in Ethiopia's Parliament.
“Sudan has its own problems. So does Ethiopia. Faced with these difficulties, both need not go to war. It’s therefore better to solve the border conflict through dialogue,” Mr Abiy said.
The people of Sudan, he added, are “brothers who have been standing alongside us in every situation”.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
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