Restore irrigation documents, national security – the face of truth – ✍️ Ibrahim Shaqlawi
At the time of conflicts, the risk does not reside only in human and material losses, but also as the State is exposed in its institutional memory. And with regard to the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, the conversation is not limited to technical installations or files, but rather to a sovereign institution which is closely linked to national security, by its role in the management of the most sensitive and strategic resources of the country, which is water. The loss of the archives of this ministry is completely or partially or partially, represents a major administrative defect, as well as real threat to the capacity of the State to plan, to preserve its rights and its effective negotiation in regional files.
In this article, we try to review the dimensions of this problem, the angle of what the archive represents as a steering element of the decision -making system and the challenges imposed by the current reality in terms of preservation of the artistic and institutional heritage, in the light of internal conflicts and increasing regional pressures on water resources.
The Ministry of Irrigation in Sudan is the legitimate heir to a complete century of planning based on the equation: earth, water and sovereignty. From the beginnings of the Al -jazeera project in the 1920s, until the implementation of the major Meroé dams, State of Steres, this ministry played a central role in the transformation of Sudan into a permanent candidate to be the food basket of the Arab world and Africa. The archive which maintains the details of this experience is considered a national, political, economic and genius memory which is essential in reconstruction.
When I had between 2017 and 2019, an official of the media coordination council and an official ministry spokesperson, we were fully aware of this value. This is why we have launched a large documentary project in cooperation with the unit of the dams and the center of the Ministry of Information, which guarantees digital and paper archiving for all technical documents, including those of the Civil Agency for Irrigation of Boden and the history of irrigation in Sudan, and a large part of the archives of the continuous work. It was a pre-attractive work to protect the memory of the state in the light of the escalation of political fragility. Thank God, the project has succeeded.
Today, after the declarations made by the Minister of Irrigation, the engineer Daw Al -Bayt Abdul Rahman, via “SONA”, on the loss of basic documents following the destruction of the ministry’s installations by rebel militias, the question is: if these documents have survived? And if he does not survive, how will the state be able to restore its institutional spirit in one of the most sensitive sectors?
What makes this question more urgent is that Sudan moves in a regional context in which the fight for water resources in the Nile basin will be intensified, because it gradually tends to be a technical dispute to a regional sovereign conflict, in particular with the continuous crisis of the Renaissance dam. Sudan has so far failed to reach a satisfactory understanding of the Ethiopian part concerning the functioning and management of the dam, in order to ensure the historic part of Sudan and to protect its agricultural, environmental and economic interests. This failure in a large part of it requires strengthening our negotiation position by having a strong and complete database which reveals potential damage and suggests scenarios to deal with water flow changes.
The absence of archives at this stage means the absence of arguments, the absence of tools and the absence of the ability to see. This makes the loss of documents not only an administrative disaster, but a major sovereign setback. Negotiations are not managed by emotions or good intentions, but by specific data, historical experience, operating and maintenance recordings and all that documents provide.
Consequently, the protection of the remaining archives of the Ministry of Irrigation, or an attempt to restore it in any way whatsoever, becomes a no less important priority than the restart of stations and installations. And if we launched an initiative yesterday to document this memory, then the duty of the scene is now to launch a national project to rebuild the archives, with the participation of ministries, university institutions and experts, and all those who have a copy of the past of Sudan water.
The Al -jazeera project, with all its field and hydrological complications, cannot be revived without an archive which explains how the water flowed and where it was disturbed. On the contrary, the “popular campaign for the irrigation channels on the island and the carrier”, despite its importance in the field, will remain limited to a technical and technical memory based on the stages of implementation and the determination of priorities.
According to what we see of the truth, the archives of the Ministry of Irrigation are one of the keys to national sovereignty in one of the most dangerous areas of the regional conflict: the resource struggle. Documents documenting a century of experience, knowledge and water planning are negotiations, scientific references and a pillar to rebuild the State. The loss of this memory means reducing the capacity of the State to defend its interests internal and regional. Consequently, the restoration and protection of documents is a very important security and political choice, which requires an immediate will and decisions that make the importance of this archive for the future of the country in the management of water resources.
You are fine and well.
Wednesday May 21, 2025 ad shglawi55@gmail.com
