Development Aid in an Environmental Context: Using Microfinance to Promote Equitable and Sustainable Water Use in the Nile Basin

Abstract

Water resource management plays a critical role in everything from the viability of individual communities to regional political stability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Nile Basin. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a recent effort to overcome historical clashes over use of the Nile’s waters in order to achieve a basin-wide framework for transboundary cooperation. One element of NBI focuses on community-level action in furtherance of transboundary cooperation, and includes a microgrant program to help achieve its goals. Signiªcantly, however, NBI does not include a microcredit program. This Note argues that, in light of the deep connections between inadequate water resources and the marginalization of women and the poor, NBI should supplement its microgrant program with microcredit programs to further its goals. More broadly, this Note advocates for the use of microcredit programs—which are generally implemented only in the development aid arena—in an environmental context.