The Nubian Project

Project goals and objectives

The long-term goal of the project is to establish a rational and equitable management of the NSAS for sustainable socio-economic development and the protection of biodiversity and land resources. The project has a proposed 30-month timeline.

Simply put, the project’s four immediate objectives are:

1. Identify priority transboundary threats and root causes

2. Fill key gaps

3. Prepare a Strategic Action Programme (SAP)

4. Establish the framework to implement the SAP

More specifically, the four immediate objectives are:

1. Prepare and agree on a Shared Aquifer Diagnostic Analysis (SADA) to jointly identify, understand and reach agreement on the priority issues, threats and root causes of the NSAS

2. Address and fill key methodological, data and capacity gaps needed for strategic planning decisions, using appropriate technical approaches with a focus on isotopic techniques and applications under the supervision of the IAEA.

3. Undertake the preparation of a Strategic Action Programme (SAP) to outline the necessary legal, policy and institutional reforms needed to address the priority threats and their root causes as identified in the SADA for the NSAS with a focus on the environmental aspects of aquifer management.

4. Establish a framework for developing an agreed legal and institutional mechanism towards a NSAS convention for joint four-partite management and rational use of the shared NSAS system.