Mr Innocent Ntabana, a Rwandan national has been selected to head the Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat (NBI). Ntabana takes over from Dr John Rao Nyaoro from Kenya. As the new Executive Director, Ntabana is responsible for leading NBI’s continuous development, strategic planning, general management, coordination and control of all its operations.
NBI consists of eleven member countries; Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda who benefit from River Nile.
NBI leadership is rotational after two years basing on alphabetical order of the names of the basin countries.
Mr Ntabana becomes the 8th executive director since NBI was established in 1999.
NBI was formed to ‘correct’ the colonial agreement that gave Egypt almost sole control of the river Nile waters.
In 1929, the then colonial ruler Britain signed an agreement with Egypt and Sudan requiring other countries that share waters of the River Nile to seek permission from Cairo before embarking on any large scale projects on the 6,695 km (4,160 mile) river.
Ntabana comes with 30 years of progressive experience in the management of programmes and projects in rural development, especially in agriculture, water resource management and agri-business development.
He has worked with different international organisations including UN Food and Agriculture Organisation,(FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) African Development Bank (AFDB), World Food Programme, World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, International Fertilizer Development Center among others.
Mr Ntabana is not entirely new to NBI. He previously worked as regional project manager for the Regional Agricultural Trade and Productivity Project from 2008 to 2012.
Daily Monitor
UM– USEKE.RW
