Lost in the vast emptiness of
Egypt’s Western Desert near Lake Nasser, 7,000 men worked around
the clock for six months to complete the first phase of the grand
“South Valley Development Project” by October 2002. Trucks and
tractors lay scattered amongst piles of building materials and
heaps of sand: the place looked like a playground for giants,
abandoned in mid-play by a colossal child who carelessly left his
toys in the sandpit.
This
is Egypt’s largest and most ambitious project since the High
Aswan Dam; what the government promises will be “a second
Egypt”, the “New Valley” that will soon thrive alongside the
old one. In a period of 20 years and at a cost of 304.9 billion
Egyptian Pounds (66 billion US$) the South Valley Development
Project will reclaim and irrigate 1.5 million feddans (1.4 million
acres) of desert land using water from three sources: Lake Nasser,
the wadis close to the Nile and subterranean wells. This “mega
national project” will double the surface of arable land in the
region, creating 2.8 million new jobs and attracting a population
of 16.2 million people to the new desert towns that will arise
here.
With
its giant pumping station, the 50-kilometer Sheikh Zayed Canal and
its numerous branches that will take water from Lake Nasser to new
agricultural lands, the Toshka Project is undoubtedly the most
impressive component of the project. Financed by the government
(which assumes 25 per cent of costs) and large international
investors, including the Saudi Prince Al Waleed ibn Talal and
several international agro-industrial companies, this hi-tech
agricultural project plans to exploit the local conditions by
growing seasonal crops like strawberries, asparagus and grapes
during the winter months and exporting them to cold Northern
climates with large profit margins.
Creating
Vibrancy in the Barren Emptiness
The
project’s primary aim however, is to draw populations from the
overcrowded Nile Valley to these new lands. Dr. Dia El Din El Qosy,
a senior advisor to the Minister of Water Resources and
Irrigation, says the project will bring new life and livelihood to
an area that was until now barren and uninhabited. “The Toshka
Project is motivated by social reasons: we want to relieve
Egypt’s overcrowded and overpopulated towns, cities and urban
centers by creating this new space, and by creating new employment
opportunities. This part of the country has been neglected
both from a social and a political point of view. We now want to
bring development to the region,” he says. El Qosy explains that
this development will take place in several stages: “First we
will focus on agriculture, then on the agro-industry, then on
industry, tourism, and so on, until we create a vibrant, full
community.”
Standing
in the vast emptiness of the Western Desert amidst trucks and
piles of construction debris, it is hard to picture the vibrant,
full communities that El Qosy talks about. And as the midday sun
beats down on the toiling workers, it is also hard to imagine
Egyptians will prefer the heat-stricken wasteland of Toshka to the
green familiarity of the Nile Valley. As one official in Cairo
explained, “People in Egypt have a very strong link with the
Nile Valley. In our minds the desert is associated with death and
cemeteries. It is not easy to convince people to move to the
desert.”
But
higher salaries reflect the tough conditions here and authorities
are confident this will form an incentive for people to move to
Toshka. El Qosy explains there will be other advantages too like
tax breaks and subsidies, and high quality services, schools, and
hospitals.
Hussein
El Gibaaly from the ministry of housing sees many factors that
will draw people from the overcrowded Nile Valley to this new
Egypt: cheaper housing and land, higher salaries and, most
importantly, thousands of new jobs. “And then of course there is
an airport near Abu Simbel,” he says. “This is very important.
It will make people feel connected to the rest of the country;
they will feel they are not totally isolated in a remote area,
knowing that there are direct connections to Cairo and Aswan every
day.” Paradoxically, Gibaaly thinks that the psychological
reassurance that one can get away from the place, the feeling that
one is not completely cut off in the desert, will form an
incentive to move there.
A
Playground for Engineers
Both
internationally and within Egypt, Toshka is regarded with much
scepticism. Egyptians are generally wary of the project and many
see it merely as an expression of the president’s power, just as
the High Aswan Dam was seen as a monument to Nasser’s power in
the 60s. One shopkeeper in Aswan said, “Toshka is bad. It is bad
for Egypt, it bad for the Egyptians. The only person it is good
for is Mubarak. It is his pyramid.”
Others
question the project’s economic and strategic viability. With a
population of 68 million and a water quota of 55.5 billion cubic
meters per year, Egyptians have about 700 cubic metres of water
per person per year, bringing Egypt below the internationally
acknowledged water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters. Given
Egypt’s high birth rates this situation is only going to get
worse.
And
despite government initiatives to rationalize water use and limit
wastage of the precious resource, the hard fact remains that Egypt
doesn’t have an awful lot of water. This is also why many
question whether reclaiming more land in the hottest part of the
country – temperatures rise over 50 °C in summer months at
Toshka – is wise.
Critics
also say most of the income from the project will return to the
international investors instead of being reinvested in the
Egyptian economy. Dr. Mohamed Nasr Allam, a professor of
irrigation engineering at Cairo University, comments:
“Economically this project is not wise. We are giving the
income from our water and land to foreigners who are developing
large, mechanized farms that require limited labor force.”
As
an engineer, Jan Bron, the head of the Dutch team that
co-ordinates the Water Boards Project in Egypt, recognises the
Toshka Project as a great engineering feat, but he predicts the
project will fail from a social point of view. “From an
engineering point of view it is a great project: the largest
pumping station in the world, the irrigation of millions of
hectares of land… basically it is a playground for engineers.
For now it is still justifiable and when it does finally go wrong,
others will be in power. But the idea of sending the overflow of
people from the Delta and the Valley to Toshka is delusional. I
think the project will fail disastrously.”
Bron
and many other observers say the real problem lies not in specific
projects like Toshka but in overall government policy that still
encourages the development of agriculture. Nasr Allam agrees.
“In my view it would be better to develop industry, and shift
away from agriculture that consumes so much water. We have to
expand into other sectors. We still export agricultural produce,
even though we know we must conserve water; we grow rice, even
though it consumes great quantities of water. The government still
resists developing other sectors because many are stuck in a
traditional view of Egypt as an agricultural producer. We have to
get past this image and evolve into the reality of 21st
century.”
But
some believe Egypt is making the best of a bad situation:
“I don’t think you can blankly state that the government is
making a mistake in its water policies. The truth is there is no
easy solution. There is no easy way to solve this. There are so
many problems. It is a huge challenge,” comments Fatemah Farag,
features editor of Al Ahram Weekly.
Dr
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the Egyptian minister of water resources and
irrigation explains the challenge facing Egypt in the coming
century; asked what the priority is for Egyptian water policy, he
says, “There are too many priorities. You look at the situation
and you see only priorities. It is a big challenge: we have to
maximise the benefit from the water we have, use it more
efficiently. Then we have to prevent pollution and also work with
our neighbors. In parallel we have to look to modernise the
irrigation system, encourage drainage water reuse and limit the
birth rate. It is a great challenge; it is hard to know where to
begin.”
Meanwhile,
down at Toshka, engineers working at the site admit life there is
tough. Abdel Fateh, the general site manager, and Abdel Hafez, a
design engineer, say heat, long hours and homesickness take their
toll off the men. Fateh explains: “The difficulties of the life
here are many: there are no women, no children, there is no
entertainment, work is our only entertainment. When we go back to
Aswan we are so happy to see people that we want to shake hands
with everyone in the street. Life here is hard.” One has to hope
that the women, the children and the entertainment will all come
to Toshka in good time, bringing with them the community life that
is now sorely lacking. The question is whether high salaries and
high-standard facilities can make the heat and the homesickness
bearable and whether the Egyptians will abandon the banks of their
beloved Nile for this brave new world in the desert. 
