Egypt's Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Sweilam met with Kenyan Minister of Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation Alice Motoni Wahomi, during the former's visit to Kenya on Tuesday. During the meeting, the two ministers discussed ways to enhance joint cooperation in the field of water resources and irrigation between the two countries. Sweilam stressed his aspiration to work together to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and integration between the two countries in the field of sustainable development of water resources. He also affirmed Egypt's keenness to permanently strengthen this cooperation between Egypt and the Nile Basin countries by creating common interests and achieving mutual benefit for all parties. Sweilam referred to the history of fruitful technical cooperation between Egypt and Kenya, which is an example to follow for bilateral relations built on the foundations of cooperation and good relations. This cooperation began in 1993 with Egypt providing technical support to Kenya in the field of groundwater through a memorandum of understanding that was signed between the two countries to provide support for Kenya to drill 180 underground wells. A memorandum of understanding was also signed in 2016 to implement a project for the development and management of water resources, which includes various activities to increase the optimal use of water resources and capacity-building in several areas, including; drilling underground wells, construction of dams to harvest rainwater, training and capacity-building in various areas of resource management, and the application of modern irrigation systems in the field of agriculture. Sweilam further stressed his keenness to activate bilateral cooperation projects between the two countries in the field of adaptation to climate change, under the umbrella of the International Initiative for Adaptation in the Water Sector. The initiative was launched by Egypt at COP27. It aims to implement projects in the field of adaptation in African countries in the first place.
