CAIRO — The first phase of feasibility studies of the Victoria-Mediterranean Waterway Project is scheduled to be completed by the end of December, Ahmed Bahaa, head of the Nile water sector at the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, told Al-Monitor. The waterway, to connect Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea, would pass through all the Nile Basin countries — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt — to create a new river-rail network.

The goal of the project is to turn the Nile into a passageway for transportation and shipment from the heart of Africa to Europe via Egypt. This will require cleaning up the river, strengthening bridges and establishing new berths and ports in the participating countries and connecting the passageway to railway networks.

Bahaa said that Cairo has received promises of serious consideration from a number of international bodies regarding the possibility of providing funding for the implementation stage of the project, whose cost is estimated at around $12 billion. Among the possibilities are China, the European Union and the African Development Bank (ADB).

According to Bahaa, the waterway will provide safer, more environmentally friendly and cheaper transport compared to overland routes from the African interior to the Mediterranean. The savings will contribute to improving economic growth rates, especially for landlocked Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda.