The recent visit to Tanzania (18 July) by Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, presents us with an opportunity to ponder about the experiences which the two countries can share.
Egypt has an African history going back millennia and millennia. Many of us know about the pharaohs, the pyramids and the sphynx. We may recall learning about Egyptian irrigation based on the ‘shadoof’ technology. The shadoof is a hand-operated lever mechanism invented in ancient Egypt around 2000 BC. It features a long wooden pole balanced on a pivot, with a bucket suspended from the long end and a heavy counterweight on the short end, enabling farmers to easily lift water from the Nile River into elevated fields and canals. Thus, Egypt has long experience in crop irrigation.
The catchment basin of the river Nile, Egypt’s lifeline, includes Tanzania in the form of Lake Victoria (Lweeru) and the river Kagera.
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