Ethiopia’s bright future may be within reach. As it plans to finalize by 2022 the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River, which is a major tributary of the Nile River, Ethiopian leadership hopes to bring electricity to millions of Ethiopians who currently lack access to it.
Ethiopian authorities are confident that GERD would have the capacity to produce 6,000 megawatts of power, which may even leave enough electricity for exports to Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Kenya.
Increased electrification would improve the lives of Ethiopian farmers and wealthy businesses alike and boost the health of the economy in one of the fastest growing Sub-Saharan African nations. However, GERD carries massive risks to the entire population of Egypt, which is located downstream from the Nile River.
The Nile has been central to Egypt’s survival for centuries. In the words of Herodotus, an ancient 5th century BC Greek historian, “Egypt is the gift of the Nile.” Located on a desert with nearly no rainfall, Egypt’s cultivable land accounts for just 5 percent of the country. The agriculture along the fertile Nile Delta feeds 99 percent of the Egyptian population. 90 percent of the country depends on the Nile as a source of drinking water and irrigation.
Any disruption to water supply from the Nile would mean a collapse of Egyptian agriculture and an onset of major social turmoil.
Any disruption to water supply from the Nile would mean a collapse of Egyptian agriculture and an onset of major social turmoil.
According to Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Mohamed Abdel Aty, “If the water that’s coming to Egypt [is] reduced by 2 percent, we would lose about 200,000 acres of land. One acre at least makes one family survive. [The average family size in Egypt] is about five persons. So, this means about one million [would] be jobless. It is an international security issue.”
MAP of the Grand Renaissance Dam location in Ethiopia
Located downstream and heavily dependent on the Nile water, Sudan will also be impacted by GERD. According to Sudan’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Yasser Abbas, there are likely to be both good and bad effects of the dam on his country. On the positive side, the dam will provide consistent and predictable levels of water. But it could also harm farmers who rely on floodplain agriculture to irrigate their crops.
Ethiopia and Egypt have been in a dispute over access to the Nile water for centuries. The Blue Nile, which originates in Ethiopia, provides about two-thirds of the yearly water flow to the Nile River. The rest of the water comes from Lake Victoria, which also runs down from Ethiopia.
Annual flooding from the Nile has historically brought silt and sediment to improve the soil along the Nile Delta and given rise to Egyptian agriculture. Egypt is also worried that a decline in water flow from the Nile would adversely affect Lake Nasser – a reservoir that is key for power generation by the country’s huge Aswan Dam.
It is important to note that GERD will not increase Ethiopia’s water consumption levels, but it will cut the amount of water flowing downstream while the dam is being filled. Even during the era of the pharaohs, Egyptians were concerned about an upstream dam that would decrease the flow of water. Now this fear is real.
Ethiopia has criticized Egypt for trying to maintain a “self-claimed, colonial era-based water allocation and veto power on any project in the Nile system.”
Addis Ababa wants to reverse what it sees as an unequal use of the Nile’s water. Standing firm on building one of the largest hydropower plants in Africa, worth 4 billion USD, Ethiopia has criticized Egypt for trying to maintain a “self-claimed, colonial era-based water allocation and veto power on any project in the Nile system.”
Treating the dam as a sovereignty issue, Ethiopia rejected the 1929 treaty that made the Nile’s water a near-absolute domain of Egypt and Sudan and excluded upstream states. It began building GERD during the height of the Arab Spring in 2011 without discussing it with Egypt. Already more than 70 percent complete, the 145-meter-high and 1.8-kilometer-long dam would help meet Ethiopia’s universal electrification goal by 2025 and lift millions from poverty. It plans to start filling GERD later this year.
If the dispute over water is not resolved soon, Ethiopia’s economic gain from building the dam is likely to be marred by a conflict with Egypt and Sudan. A war is not ruled out. According to a Wikileaks document from 2012, Egypt and Sudan planned to bomb GERD, which authorities in both countries denied. Short of a military confrontation, both countries have been seeking a diplomatic solution over the past few years to equitably share the river with Ethiopia.
A series of recent negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan in Washington, under the auspices of the U.S. and the World Bank, have yielded some progress, although the parties have not reached a final agreement.
Under a January 2020 draft agreement, Addis Ababa achieved a compromise with Sudan and Egypt that it would fill GERD in stages, as opposed to commencing power production as soon as the dam becomes operational.
Under a January 2020 draft agreement, Addis Ababa achieved a compromise with Sudan and Egypt that it would fill GERD in stages during the July and August rainy season, as opposed to commencing power production as soon as the dam becomes operational.
This would allow Egypt and Sudan to access enough water to address any droughts. Cairo and Khartoum have been worried about water shortages if GERD is filled too rapidly. While Ethiopia has been insisting that it would fill the dam in six years, Egypt has been pressing for a more prolonged period of 10 to 20 years for fear of a dramatic drop in water levels.
So far, no specific time period has been included into the initial agreement. Ministers of all three countries have yet to settle on a long-term dam management system and legal approach for conflict resolution.
On February 26, Ethiopia requested that a final round of meetings brokered by the U.S. be postponed. Ethiopian leadership said that it would need more time for consultations. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan were slated to sign the final agreement by the end of February. Some reports allege that Ethiopia felt pressured by the U.S. to sign the deal.
Time will tell whether the goodwill of the three countries to share the Nile River can prevail over a potential water war.
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