New Deal On The Nile. The Gezira Cotton Scheme -- Headquarters of Sudan Cotton Syndicate with three large ginning factories and other buildings covers wide area near Wad Madani. In foreground is a line of Sudan Government Railways which takes cotton to Port Sudan for export. The British Government in Africa has long had its own 'Tennessee Valley' scheme the Gezira Cotton Scheme in the Valley area of nearly a million acres between the Blue and White Niles. Plans for the area's development were begun before the last war, and by 1925 the Sennar Dam, two miles long and over a hundred foot high at its deepest point, was completed. September 6, 1951. (Photo by British Official Photograph).