Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aty met on Wednesday with Eve Bazaiba Masudi — the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Democratic Republic of the Congo — to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries.
The meeting came on the sidelines of Masudi’s participation in the World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh and focused on ways to enhance relations between the two countries in the field of water resources and management.
During the meeting, the two officials discussed the developments of a project to connect Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, which will open up prospects for integration in all fields, achieve mutual benefit, and increase trade exchange between countries.
Abdel Aty highlighted the importance of the project in achieving regional integration and linking the Nile Basin countries through a navigation corridor, a road, a railway, an electrical connection, and an internet cable connection to achieve the comprehensive development of the basin’s countries.
He also stressed that transporting goods of various types and sizes between countries through the river is one of the best means of trade due to its low cost, lower energy consumption, and higher safety rates compared to other means of transportation.
The project also aims to provide job opportunities and increase the possibility of landlocked countries to connect to the world’s seas and ports as well as support the economic development of participating countries and strengthen the region’s position in the global economic system.
For her part, Masoudi expressed her country’s desire to continue the process of cooperation with Egypt in the field of water, during which several projects were implemented, most notably the Flood Forecasting Centre in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa.
