Fighting for the Nile? (GERD part I)

In last week's blog I discussed the importance of politics when it comes to accessibility to (fresh) water. Looking at physical availability of water only, does not represent the actual availability and accessibility of water in Africa. Actors such as governments, NGO's and local officials all play a big role in the accessibility of water for African citizens. In today's blog I am going to have a look at one of Africa's biggest and most ambitious electricity projects in recent history: the construction of the Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia. And more important, what are the political consequences of this construction for relations between Ethiopia and Egypt and Sudan? 

Ethiopia started the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam (see figure 1) in 2011 on the Blue Nile at the height of Guba, about 45 km from the Sudanese border (Tesfa, 2013). Ethiopia, after the Democratic Republic of Congo, has the highest theoretical hydropower capacity in Africa. However, only tiny amounts of this capacity have been used. Considering only 23% of Ethiopian households have access to electricity and 96% are still relying on traditional biomass, there is a need for more electricity (T.N. Kahsay et al., 2015). The Grand Renaissance Dam costs $ 4.8 billion and will have an installed capacity of 5250 megawatts. When the dam is finished, it will have a reservoir volume of more than 63 billion cubic meters, approximately 1.3 times the annual flow amount of the Blue Nile (Hammond, 2013; Veilleux, J., 2013; Chen, H. & Swain, A., 2014). 

   
 Figure 1: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under construction in 2017.

Ethiopia is struggling with shortage of water storage facilities, demands of institutional and infrastructural investment is high but the investment ability is low. A study of the Worldbank proves that the cost of hydrological variability has currently been estimated on more than one third of the country’s annual GDP. Therefore Ethiopia should really consider investing in multipurpose water infrastructure to ensure a sustainable long term solution for droughts and floods. Despite this need of a multipurpose water system, Ethiopia is only focusing on power generation instead of for example irrigation and water storage (Hammond, 2013; Chen, H., & Swain, A. 2014). 

 Fighting over Nile waters

The Nile river, on which the Grand Renaissance is built, is home to 11 African countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Adjustments in the river automatically affect (mainly downstream) countries. Considering the Nile countries face increasing pressure on water resources due to population- and economic growth, tensions between Ethiopia and in particular Egypt and Sudan regarding the Grand Renaissance Dam, have increased (Hammond, 2013).

The Ethiopian highlands provide around 86% of the total Nile flow, 70% of that flow is coming from the Blue Nile (Hammond, 2013). Because the Nile river is so precious to North Eastern African countries, the water distribution of the river is laid out in the Nile agreement of 1959 between the riparian states of Egypt and Sudan. This agreement allocates 55.5 km3 to Egypt and 18.5 km3 to Sudan. Ethiopia (among other countries), however, has never acknowledged this agreement and argues that since most of the river flow originates in Ethiopia it has the right to have an equal and appropriate share of the river flow. Attempts on changing the 1959 agreement have failed in both 1999 and 2010. Egypt and Sudan showed great opposition and wished to keep their veto rights over upstream developments.

According to Ethiopia the agreement between Sudan and Egypt is only a bilateral one, excluding other riparian countries. Egypt needs the water and believes that it has the historical right of the Nile waters. This need for water is confirmed by Taylor (2017), arguing Egypt is in water stress according to the latest statistics. Egyptian former president Mohamed Morsi reportedly said in a television interview in 2013 he was not calling for a war with Ethiopia, but Egypt’s water security should not be ‘violated at all’. He warned Ethiopia by saying that if the Egyptian share of water was to diminished by one drop, ‘our blood is the alternative’ (CNN, 2018). This opposition reflects the change in geopolitical powers in the region. Egypt’s position as a hegemonic regional power due to a significant discrepancy between the socio-economic development with upstream states is decreasing. Ethiopia as a rising economic power and home to 86% of the Nile’s water supply will challenge Egypt’s power more and more (Hammond, 2013). 

Figure 2: Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi

In the past decades Ethiopia has failed to exploit their water potentials due to financial and political problems. Besides that, fellow riparian state Egypt has repeatedly succeeded in preventing international creditors and donors from investing in Ethiopian's Grand Renaissance Dam (Hammond, 2013; Veilleux, 2013; Chen, H., & Swain, A. 2014).

Thus, the construction of The Grand Renaissance Dam has caused great concerns in Egypt and Sudan. The Ethiopian government, however, argues that both countries will not be (significantly) harmed by the construction and operation of the dam. The government argues that Eastern Nile countries will even benefit from it. According to a research from Kahsay et al. (2015) Egypt will only be harmed by the dam if a sequence of dry years occur, that is because Egypt is more dependent on energy than water for it’s economic prosperity. Overall Kahsey et al (2015) argue that the building of the dam will boost the economy of Eastern African countries is therefore valuable for the riparian states.

As we have seen in this blog, water and constructions that change the flow of water are contested in a regional manner. Accessibility is not just a local affaire, it’s dependent on the actions of other (government) actors as well. As all riparian Nile countries are to some extent dependent on the Nile’s water, intervention on the river is a highly sensitive topic, just because it affects a basic need of life.

Bibliography

Chen, H., & Swain, A. (2014). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Evaluating its sustainability standard and geopolitical significance. Energy Development Frontier, 3(1), 11.

Hammond, M. (2013, February). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the Blue Nile: implications for transboundary water governance. In Global Water Forum (Vol. 1307).

Kahsay, T. N., Kuik, O., Brouwer, R., & van der Zaag, P. (2015). Estimation of the transboundary economic impacts of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam: A computable general equilibrium analysis. Water Resources and Economics, 10, 14-30.

Lazarus, S. (2018, October 21). Is Ethiopia taking control of the Nile river?. CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/19/africa/ethiopia-new-dam-threatens-egypts-water/index.html

Tesfa, B. (2013). Benefit of grand Ethiopian renaissance dam project (GERDP) for Sudan and Egypt.

Veilleux, J. C. (2013). The human security dimensions of dam development: the grand Ethiopian renaissance dam. Global Dialogue, 15(2), 1-15.