It has to be said, however, that the organization has had little impact on the ground. According to Frank Habineza, NBDF national coordinator, this is due to the specifics within the contract between NBDF and DFID, which had provided funds worth £180,000 and had specifically requested that the funds be used for advocacy, awareness, training and research dissemination.

NBDF national coordinator Frank Habineza. (file photo)

For instance, the capacity building workshop on the viability of hydro power dams and alternative sources of power or energy was later found faulty in many ways, yet there were no funds allocated to restart the capacity building.

Created back in 2003, NBDF spent three years without any significant activities being until 2006, when DFID started to provide funding. “After NBDF was created we were faced with a huge problem of getting funds to start our activities,” Habineza explained.

In fact the Canadian international development agency had provided 1 million Canadian dollars for the launch of NBDF, and the money was shared among NBDF member countries leaving the entire organization with no money for its operations.

Being an umbrella association of civil societies dealing with water, environment, rural development, gender mainstreaming and human rights, NBDF has left many stakeholders frustrated by the lack of the funds to set up projects that would directly benefit communities.

While presenting the new three year action plan to stakeholders, Habineza pointed out that NBDF was going to receive a three year funding for the projects from 2009 to 2012.

A US$ 7 million funding will be provided by DFID, CIDA as well as the Swedish international development fund (SIDA).

However Habineza reiterated that although NBDF would continue with some of the activities that it has been involved in such as training, research, advocacy and networking, part of the fund which he could not specify could be used fund projects which directly impact on communities.

“We are trying to negotiate so that some of the funds can be available for implementing some of the projects that need to be completed,” Habineza said.

However the US$ 7 million will have to be equally shared among all of the ten member countries, while the money for the projects will be distributed according to the number of projects each member state has.

Other things to be done in the three year project include strengthening the organizational and technical capacity of NBDF to effectively and actively influence the Nile basin for the benefit of communities.

Furthermore, it also plans to ensure that the financial and institutional capacities are ensured and also to sensitize the civil society to actively and effectively influence the regional Nile basin policy.

NBDF member states include; Burundi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan as well as Egypt.