Kabale, Uganda - The Nile Basin Discourse (NBD) and the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) have today renewed their partnership and engagement by signing a second Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MoU was signed by the Executive Director of NBI, Ms. Henriette Ndombe and the Chairperson of NBD, Prof. Oweyegha - Afunaduula.
The signing ceremony was held in Kabale district as part of activities to mark this year‘s Regional Nile Day celebrations, held annually on 22 February.

Through the three year MoU (February 2010 to February 2013), the two institutions have pledged to: - exchange information, collaborate in the development programmes, projects and activities, improve mutual benefit of the existing cooperation amongst all stakeholders and co-operate in identifying strategic alliances that promote social and development equity. NBI and NBD have also pledged to use institutional arrangements and capacity to elicit early strategic input from stakeholders, create avenues to allow discussion of diverse views on local, national and regional perspectives for better understanding, co-operate in preparation and dissemination of relevant materials to raise awareness as well as foster joint action, co-operation, information sharing and mutual understanding.

Since its formation in 2002, the NBD has established a mutual relationship with the NBI. In 2006 the NBD and NBI signed their 1st MOU for a period of 3 years to facilitate their engagements and collaborations.

NBD has already made plans to increase awareness of the benefits and costs of Nile cooperation, collect and consolidate reflections and perceptions from the awareness and make contributions that will inform policy development, project design and add value to the ultimate shared vision of the NBI: ‘to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile basin water resources’.