Ethiopia’s dream dam, and Egypt’s existence fears

High and about two kilometers over blue nile, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been a nation-building project and a possible economic revolution for 14 years.

Today, with its inauguration, it is officially Africa’s largest hydroelectric project.

While the dam-cost cost is approximately $ 6 billion CDN-it has provoked deep anxiety in Downstream countries like Egypt, its completion is a symbol of pride for Ethiopia, self-sufficiency and is a significant twist for a nation, where millions of people still cook for light wood and charcoal and burn kerosene.

“Ethiopian is Jubilant,” said Moses Chrisapus Okelo, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies at Edes Ababa. “The dam is a history-growing piece of the infrastructure … and today marks what you can say to Ethiopia of the past and an Ethiopia of the future.”

The hydroelectric project is designed to keep 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate 5,000 MW power – more than double the current capacity of the country.

Ocllo says it promises to infection to the country of struggle for energy dominance in the horn of Africa, as it will be able to sell very important electricity to neighboring countries such as Djibouti, Tanzania, Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya.

Power sales in the region will provide Ethiopia with a new flow of foreign currency, which said an African water expert and professor John Mukum Mabaku at Weber State University in Utah.

Not everyone is a jubilant

But what is being celebrated in Adis Ababa is feared by Downorivar in Cairo.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called the project “existential threat” and vowed to defend the water security of his country with all available means.

With a population of 110 million, Egypt depends almost entirely on the Nile River, and any decrease in its flow is a threat to farming, jobs and national stability.

Cahira with Sudan formed his claim on the 1959 Nile Water Treaty, a colonial era compromise that gave Egypt two-thirds of the river flow and about a quarter of Sudan, such as upstream nations such as Ethiopia, except for the fact that its highlands provide excess water.

Sudan also worries that low flow in this dried area may hit farming and compromise with downstream dams.

Ethiopia and other upstream country reject the treaty, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed repeatedly assured neighbors that the project does not harm.

From the African Union to Russia and America, they have failed to resolve the dispute over the years of interactions with mediators.

“Despite all efforts by Egypt, they were still not able to prevent Ethiopia from the construction of the dam,” said Mabuku. “They need to come on an agreement where they see it as a regional development project” and share its management.

If they do not, they say, it is Egypt and Sudan that will suffer.

Symbol of sovereignty

For Ethiopia, the dam has become a rare national integrated force, not at least because it was itself funded by Ethiopian people.

Egypt’s diplomatic efforts to prevent the dam by Egypt, Mabuka, effectively blocks Ethiopia’s access to Ethiopia’s international financing, forced Ethiopia to sell bonds to its own citizens and migrants to fund the project. For most Ethiopian people, it makes the project a double powerful symbol – with economic progress as well as sovereignty.

For the broader African continent, the dam provides a model of development -free development from international loans obstacles.

“A lot of African is saying,” Ethiopia has completed something that most African countries have never been able to do, “said Mabaku.

“A massive construction project with no help of the World Bank, IMF or European Union … which should be observed not only by Ethiopia.”