On Tuesday 1 September 2026, Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Hani Sewilam restated Cairo's rejection of unilateral moves on the Nile and announced a new $100 million fund for water and dam projects in the southern Nile Basin, according to Ahram Online and Daily News Egypt. The same day, an Ethiopian former negotiator on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam made the opposite argument in public: that Egypt's own reservoirs, not Ethiopia's dams, are the larger source of water lost on the river, according to the Ethiopian News Agency.
Neither statement responded to the other directly, and neither government's release mentioned the other's remarks. But landing on the same calendar day, they illustrate how far apart Cairo and Addis Ababa remain on the basic question of how the Nile's water should be stored, and by whom, with each side continuing to make its case publicly rather than through any joint statement.
EgyptPulse reported the Egyptian announcement in full earlier the same day: Egypt allocates an initial $100m to Nile Basin water projects.
Egypt's message: cooperation, rejection and a $100 million fund
The two ministers said Egypt's policy toward Nile Basin countries "is founded on cooperation, development, and achieving common interests and mutual benefit," according to a joint statement reported by Ahram Online. They added that water security and development are "integrated, not conflicting, objectives."
On unilateral action, the ministers reiterated Egypt's "complete rejection" of any measures in the Eastern Nile Basin that violate international law, and said Cairo will pursue every legal option available under international law to protect its water rights, Ahram Online reported.
The $100 million mechanism is intended to study and implement water and dam development projects in southern Nile Basin countries, based on those countries' own stated priorities, according to Daily News Egypt. The ministers framed the approach around principles of "avoiding harm and cooperation through prior notification, consultation and consensus," the same report said.
The same meeting reviewed a set of Egyptian-backed projects already under way across the Nile Basin, Ahram Online reported:
- The Julius Nyerere Dam hydropower project in Tanzania
- Solar-powered wells for groundwater access
- Water-quality testing laboratories
- Capacity-building programmes for Nile Basin countries
Egypt is also co-chairing, with Japan, the third interactive dialogue, titled "Water for the Planet," at the 2026 UN Water Conference, and is set to host the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in 2028, according to Daily News Egypt.
Ethiopia's rebuttal: an evaporation argument
The same day, Fekahmed Negash made a different case. He is chairperson of the Advisory Team on Transboundary Water and GERD at Ethiopia's Ministry of Water and Energy, a former member of Ethiopia's GERD negotiating team, and a former executive director of the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office, according to the Ethiopian News Agency.
Negash's current title keeps him inside Ethiopia's ongoing Nile diplomacy, and his negotiating history is what put an evaporation argument, rather than a general policy statement, on the record on the same day as Cairo's announcement.
The Aswan High Dam, on Lake Nasser, is Egypt's principal water-storage structure on the Nile; the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is Ethiopia's newer counterpart further upstream. Negash's comparison set one against the other directly, arguing that geography, not intent, determines how much water each structure loses to the air.
Negash put the annual evaporation loss from Egypt's Aswan High Dam at roughly 15 to 16 billion cubic metres, and said combined losses from Egyptian and Sudanese dams reach about 20 billion cubic metres a year, according to the Ethiopian News Agency. His argument was that water stored upstream, in Ethiopia, would be wasted at a lower rate than water stored in Egypt's own reservoirs.
Storing water in Ethiopia, where the gorges are deep and narrow and the temperature is ambient, can minimize this evaporation. — Fekahmed Negash, chairperson, Advisory Team on Transboundary Water and GERD, Ethiopia's Ministry of Water and Energy
He said Ethiopia's deep, narrow highland gorges and cooler temperatures could cut that evaporation and increase the volume of water reaching users downstream. Negash also pointed to additional benefits he said upstream storage could bring: better sedimentation control, flood management, hydropower generation and climate resilience, according to the Ethiopian News Agency.
For this to happen, there is a need for trust and confidence to be built among the nations. — Fekahmed Negash, chairperson, Advisory Team on Transboundary Water and GERD, Ethiopia's Ministry of Water and Energy
Where the file stands
Cairo's remarks combined cooperative language with legal-rights language and a concrete financing commitment. Addis Ababa's came as a technical argument about where water is actually lost on the river, delivered by a negotiator who has represented Ethiopia's position on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Where Cairo counted the day's news in dollars, a $100 million fund plus a continuing co-chairing role on UN water diplomacy, Negash counted it in cubic metres: as much as 16 billion a year lost to evaporation at the Aswan High Dam alone, on his figures, and roughly 20 billion across Egyptian and Sudanese dams combined.
As reported, neither side's underlying position moved. Egypt continues to tie its water security to international law and to financing for southern Nile Basin states. Ethiopia continues to argue, through Negash's evaporation figures, that upstream storage in its highlands wastes less water than Egypt's own reservoirs do. The two statements, issued on the same Tuesday, stand as each side put them, with no public response from either to the other's specific figures. Cairo and Addis Ababa have still not produced a joint position on how the Nile's water should be managed — only two separate statements, issued on the same day, each aimed at a different audience.
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