This chapter describes the main socio-economic indicators for Nile Basin countries. The objective is to enable better understanding of socio-economic development of riparian countries; and the development challenges they face in meeting the basic needs of their citizens and the opportunities the common Nile Basin water resources offer to address these challenges.
The indicators selected for this chapter provide an overview of the basin in terms of: population its distribution and growth; health related indicators, such as child mortality rates; access to basic services, such as drinking water and electricity; and economic status of the basin countries, such as GDP, poverty level and income distribution. Data used to generate the indicators have been pooled from Nile Basin countries, UN agencies and other global data portals.