Water resources and freshwater ecosystems in Sudan

Sudan is a large country with varying standards of living, culture and climate. When this is superimposed on the multi-sectoral nature of water, coordination of activities in water resources planning, management and development becomes essential. The spirit of cooperation and close cooperation with countries sharing the same water resources should continue, preferably through an institutional cooperative framework for each shared basin. The guiding sprit should be equitable, legitimated, integrated, sustainable and environmentally sound utilisation of the common water resources, without significant harm from one country to another. Some of the issues and problems faced are referred in this article. Sudan has recently taken some major steps to organise the water sector. The article also shows some of the joint efforts to establish and advance cooperation with the Nile basin countries for integrated development of the shared watercourse. It concluded with a future policy look to address the emerging issues. A water policy is bound to be dynamic as it addressed issues with many variables. It is expected that, as time goes on, some new issues will surface while earlier issues will fade out. When this happens, another review of the water sector policy would be appropriate.