The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)

Water security and conflict, global systems and climate change

[This piece was originally written in 2021. There is a short update at the end.]

In 2011 Ethiopia announced plans for a huge new dam – the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) – to be built across the Blue Nile River close to the country’s border with Sudan (Figure 1). The scheme was estimated to cost $4 billion, though many thought this was an underestimate. Since then, Egypt and Ethiopia have repeatedly clashed over the dam and its future operations. Ethiopia says GERD will help pull many people in the country out of poverty and boost development, but Egypt believes it will endanger its share of the crucial Nile River waters. Only recently has Sudan become involved in the issue.

Figure 1. Location map

Egypt’s view

Egypt fears losing reliable access to the waters of the Nile, as it believes the dam will reduce the flow of the whole river after the Blue Nile’s confluence with the White Nile at Khartoum in Sudan. Egypt has a fast-growing population of over 100 million and is totally reliant on the Nile for >90% of its freshwater. The country is also highly dependent on the river for its agriculture and much of its industry. Egypt has relied on the waters of the Nile for thousands of years.

Ethiopia’s view

Ethiopia, with a similarly fast-growing population of almost 100 million, sees the hydro-electric dam, which will be Africa’s largest when completed, as a key element of its future economic development. It aims to become Africa’s biggest power exporter with a projected capacity of more than 6,000 megawatts.

Disagreement

After initial agreements had been reached (Figure 2), extended negotiations regarding the time devoted to filling the new reservoir, annual water release volumes, and strategies to deal with river flows during drought years, are struggling to proceed (Figure 3). In September 2019, Egypt dismissed Ethiopia’s proposal for these aspects as ‘unfair and inequitable’, and negotiations broke down. Representatives of the two countries met again in January 2020 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in the knowledge that the dam was 70% completed. After these meetings ended with no progress, Ethiopian Water Minister Sileshi Bekele accused Egypt of coming to the talks with no intention of reaching a deal.

‘We didn’t agree on the [further] filling of the dam as Egypt presented a new proposal requesting the filling to be carried out in 12-21 years. This is not acceptable. We will start the filling of the dam by July.’

Figure 2 Initial agreement

Phase 1 agreement between Egypt and Ethiopia:

·         the reservoir behind the dam will begin to fill up by the end of 2021

·         HEP turbines would not operate in this period.

Figure 3 Problem areas

Egypt wants:

·         an extension to the period of no HEP production if Phase 1 coincides with extreme drought on the Blue Nile - Egypt estimates that 1 million jobs will be lost causing $1.8 billion loss of economic output without this

·         a minimum annual release of 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) of water after completion of Phase 1.

Ethiopia wants:

·         a rejection of any extension to Phase 1

·         a minimum annual release of 35 bcm of water after completion of Phase 1.

Egypt has said that Ethiopia did not offer sufficient guarantees on water reserves. They accused Ethiopia of not being willing to commit to any meaningful mitigation safeguards including those during extended droughts and concluded ‘therefore there was no prospect for an agreement’. Resolution of the dispute may now involve an international mediator, such as an independent head of government. The USA is especially keen to resolve the matter.

African development, water and climate change

Water is a limited resource and key to development, and this is why these two African nations have been locked in this dispute. The president of the African Development Bank (ADB), Akinwumi Adesina, said in February 2020 ‘Anywhere in the world where you have shared water resources, there are always tensions,’ but added ‘I have every confidence that they will find mechanisms of equal sharing of this resource.’ Adesina was speaking on the fringe of the February 2020 meeting of the African Union (Figure 4) also in the Ethiopian capital. Adesina has also linked the issue to climate change by stating that ‘Africa shouldn’t have to beg for help in addressing climate change’; he added that polluting global powers ‘have to pay’ for the consequences of climate change which include water insecurity.

Figure 4. The African Union

The African Union (AU) is a pan-African organisation whose goal is to facilitate the continent towards peace and prosperity. The AU supports political and economic integration among its 54 member nations. Its overriding aims are to boost development, eradicate poverty and bring Africa into the global economy.

Africa’s 1.2 billion people stand to suffer the most from climate change while contributing to it the least. The region is also the least equipped to deal with its effects. Parts of Africa are warming at a faster pace than elsewhere, and climate experts have said warming Indian Ocean waters have contributed to more powerful cyclones and the worst locust outbreak in decades in East Africa. African heads of state are increasingly blunt about the dangers ahead and the need for the rest of the world, including top carbon polluters such as China and the United States, to step up and contribute to Africa’s efforts to adapt.

Africa currently has 15% of the world’s population yet, according to the ADB, it is likely to shoulder nearly 50% of the estimated global climate change adaptation costs. The ADB states the continent has seven of the 10 countries considered most vulnerable to climate change: Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. And yet, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy-related CO₂ emissions in Africa represented around 2% of cumulative global emissions.

Update

Talks between the three nations (Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan) stagnated throughout 2022. Policy experts have speculated about the causes for the breakdown in negotiations. Egyptian military officials primarily cite concerns about water-sharing, whereas Sudan has alleged that it had not received certain guarantees from the Ethiopian government related to the purchasing of electricity generated by the GERD in the future. Some observers speculate that as the GERD project nears completion, Ethiopia's negotiating leverage increases relative to that of Sudan and Egypt, further inciting global concern over a future water-based conflict between the nations in the Nile region.

President Joe Biden has issued a statement affirming U.S. commitment to protecting Egypt's water supply. There have also been reports of the Wagner Group (the pro-Russian military group currently playing a significant role in the Ukraine conflict) being active in Ethiopia too. It will be interesting to see how the current conflict in Sudan impacts the issue.

Photo: Ethiopian Embassy