By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner
The countries around the Horn of Africa, which include major states such as Ethiopia and Sudan, usually get little attention except when they are involved in wars. But there are other stories as well.
One such is the controversy surrounding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which may become a source of conflict with neighbours Sudan and Egypt.
The largest dam in Africa, the GERD, built at a cost of some six billion dollars, has been 14 years in the making. It led to a surge in Ethiopian nationalism, uniting a nation often polarised along ethnic lines and mired in conflict, not least because it was financed by Ethiopians themselves, including through the purchase of bonds by individuals.
The GERD is on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile River. At 1,800 metres wide and 175 metres high, it can hold back up to 74 billion cubic metres of water in a huge reservoir covering an area larger than the city of London, called Lake Nigat, which means dawn in the Amharic language.
The dam will generate 5,150 megawatts of electricity and will double Ethiopia’s current electricity capacity. Currently, about half of the country’s population doesn’t have reliable access to electricity. The dam has raised hopes that not only will it meet the 135 million-strong population’s energy needs, but it will boost its foreign currency earnings.
Hailing it as “a great achievement not only for Ethiopia but for all Black people,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, standing alongside Kenya’s President William Ruto and Djibouti’s Ismail Guelleh, on Sept. 9 formally launched the dam.
But for downstream states Egypt and Sudan, the waters of the Blue Nile are vital, and they have opposed what they describe as Ethiopia’s unilateral measures to control the river’s flow, fearing the effects on water availability. They have called for joint management of the river, but Abiy has refused, claiming the GERD is not a threat to them.
“Ethiopia remains committed to ensuring that our growth does not come at the expense of our Egyptian and Sudanese brothers and sisters,” Abiy reassured them in a speech to the Ethiopian parliament in July. “We believe in shared progress, shared energy and shared water.”
In fact, he claims the dam will generate electricity for export in the Horn of Africa, boosting the African Union’s regional development plans. Addis Ababa has already signed electricity contracts with Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti, and discussions are underway with other neighbouring countries. Some Ethiopians even have ambitions of building a transmission network to cross the Red Sea to sell to Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia.
The dam is just below the Ethiopian-Sudanese border, so Sudan will be the first to feel the effects of the dam. Apart from tits ruinous civil war, that country faces increasing drought and desertification, and depends on the river for drinking water and farming.
After flowing into Sudan, the Blue Nile joins the White Nile at Khartoum, its capital, and the combined river moves north toward Egypt. As has been true for millennia, that country relies on the Nile for around 90 per cent of its water. About 93 per cent of Egypt is desert, with almost no people. Almost all its 107 million people live on the Nile.
But Ethiopians claim the GERD will be used to generate electricity and the water will continue to flow downriver after it goes through the generating turbines, rather than stay in Ethiopia to be used as irrigation, so this, they state, should not adversely affect Egypt.
Cairo’s main issue with the project was Ethiopia’s decision to build it without first reaching agreements with its neighbouring states, which could set a precedent for future developments. A 1929 treaty gave Egypt and Sudan, both at the time under British control, rights to about 80 per cent of the Nile’s waters. The colonial-era document, updated in 1959, also gave Egypt veto powers over any projects by upstream countries like Ethiopia that would affect its share of the waters.
Ethiopia refused to be bound the treaty and started building the dam in 2011 without consulting Cairo or Khartoum. Some Egyptians suggest Ethiopia took the unilateral decision to build the dam only because Egypt was hit by the Arab Spring revolution at the time, leading to the overthrow of long-serving ruler Hosni Mubarak. Current Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi contended in 2019 that it would never have got under way had Egypt not been distracted by political turmoil.
Egypt had lobbied for institutions like the World Bank not to finance the dam’s construction. Ethiopia also got no help from the International Monetary Fund or European Union. So the Ethiopian government embarked on a big drive to successfully raise funds from its own citizens.
Since this is the first in a series of possible hydroelectric dams Ethiopia has planned for the Blue Nile, Egypt and Sudan have pushed for a legally binding deal to guarantee water flow, operational coordination and a legal mechanism for resolving disputes, to no avail.
As the dam became fully operational, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty stepped up his government’s rhetoric, warning that water security was a “red line” and the dam posed an “existential threat.” Will Egypt be girding up for war?
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