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Egypt joins with EU to protect water security

Egypt is tackling its water crisis in cooperation with the European Union, which has pledged to finance irrigation-development projects and improve the country's water management system.
An Egyptian farmer walks past his crops damaged by drought in a farm formerly irrigated by the river Nile, in El-Dakahlya, about 120 km (75 miles) from Cairo June 4, 2013. Ethiopia has not thought hard enough about the impact of its ambitious dam project along the Nile, Egypt said on Sunday, underlining how countries down stream are concerned about its impact on water supplies. The Egyptian presidency was citing the findings of a report put together by a panel of experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia on th
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CAIRO — Egypt’s Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Mohamed Abdel Aty announced in a July 24 press release that an agreement had been reached with the European Union (EU) to finance an irrigation-development project and improve the country's water-management system. The Egyptian government has been seeking to expand cooperation with international partners to address the threats to Egyptian water security.

Egypt suffers from water scarcity, with a water deficit of 20 billion cubic meters (16.2 million acre feet) a year. The government has been trying to overcome the increasing pressure on water resources with an emergency plan that runs through 2021. The plan includes measures aimed at increasing water-use efficiency, reusing treated wastewater, expanding water desalination in coastal cities and reducing cultivation of water-intensive crops, such as rice.

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