disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam

Therefore, a negotiated position that favours Ethiopia is likely to be reached once it becomes politically palatable enough inside Egypt. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Whittington, D. et al. It will take between eight and ten years to fill the new dam. What could have been strictly technical negotiations have turned into a political deadlock. However, it also entails potential negative effects on Egypt, if not carefully managed (see alsoSecurity implications of growing water scarcity in Egypt). From this round of talks, it appears that negotiations are able to move forward and address other sticking points on the agenda, such as conflict resolution mechanisms and the dams operations in the event of multi-year droughts (Al Jazeera, 2020). Four of these would potentially be located on the main river and one would eventually evolve into the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). We do know that Ethiopia is already seeing longer droughts and worse floods. The latter, in Article 2(4), allocated acquired rights of 66% of Nile water to Egypt and 22% to Sudan (with the remaining 12% attributed to leakage). l located on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia . The Grand Renaissance Dam and prospects for cooperation on the Eastern Nile. On Foes and Flows: Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities and Transboundary Relations in the Nile River Basin in Times of Climate Change. Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2017. Mainly, for the downstream countries, the. In the imperialist age, Ethiopian emperors threatened to alter the course of the Nile and stop its flow to Egypt. Similarly, in 2018, the UNSC noted the water security risks in African nations such as Somalia, Sudan and Mali. Most recently, there have been suggestions that the African Union should resolve the disagreement. Tawfik, Rawia Discussion Paper 5/2015 . Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 79-110. Monday January 2, 2017. Ethiopia also seems to have the political upper hand given that the Dam is effectively a fait accompli and given that Egypts erstwhile downstream ally, Sudan, switched sides in the dispute leaving the Egyptians diplomatically isolated. Political instability in Egypt played an important role as the announcement of the project coincided with the resignation of President Mubarak during the Arab Spring. Although Khartoum initially opposed the construction of the GERD, it has since warmed up to it, citing its potential to improve prospects for domestic development. (2017). Disadvantages Slow process Could be washed to the wrong direction Start up costs Lesson 4: Long term investment, It can't cope with he propagation rate of water hyacinth. The writer is a professor of political science at the UAEs Zayed and Cairo universities, *A version of this article appears in print in the 9 July, 2020 edition ofAl-Ahram Weekly, Spain La Liga results & fixtures (24th matchday). Since 2015, technical reports on the potential impacts of the dam have failed to reach a consensus within the TNC (Maguid, 2017). Such a mitigation program can make it much easier for Egyptian and Sudanese authorities to cooperate with Ethiopia and the other riparians in creating and adopting an agreement for management of the Nile. It imports about half its food products and recycles about 25 bcm of water annually. Copyright 2023, JURIST Legal News & Research Services, Inc. Elliot Winter | New Castle University (UK), Egyptian Water Security and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Why Ethiopia has the Upper Hand, Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, history of copyright in the United States. The US has revived diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute sparked by Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the Nile. Ethiopia says it will take a further four to six years to fill up the reservoir to its maximum flood season capacity of 74bcm. The 1959 agreement allocated all the Nile Rivers waters to Egypt and Sudan, leaving 10 billion cubic meters (b.c.m.) But the Ethiopian elites show little interest in addressing such concerns, bent as they are on a nationalist revivalist project that claims an Ethiopian exceptionalism that places Addis Ababa above international law as it pursues a water-management strategy that has less to do with its development aims than with its ambitions to weaponise water in a bid for regional hegemony. The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. Such an understanding and appreciation of Egypts water vulnerability would help the riparians develop a water management protocol that can significantly enhance equitable and reasonable use while minimizing significant harm to downstream riparians. These two factors could become serious problems. Note that, under Article 62(2) VCLT, territorial treaties are excepted from the change in circumstances rule. Given the fact that the conflict between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan over the GERD seems to be among the most pressing issues in the region, it might be advisable for emphasis to be placed on securing a trilateral agreement that secures the peace between these three countries first. Trilateral talks mediated by the United States and World Bank from November 2019 to February 2020 collapsed as Ethiopia rejected a binding agreement with Egypt and Sudan on the filling and operation of the GERD, which led to both downstream countries requesting intervention from the UN Security Council (UNSC) in May 2020 (Kandeel, 2020). Crucially, however, despite being signed by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, the legal status of the DoP was left (deliberately) vague. Egypt had asked the UNSC to push the three countries to adhere to their obligations in accordance with the rules of international law in order to reach a fair and balanced solution to the issue of the GERD. Egypts repeated references to the rules of international law is part of an effort to maintain its so-called natural and historical rights that were established and reaffirmed by the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement between Egypt and Sudan, respectivelytreaties many of the other involved parties reject as anachronistic and untenable. Cairo - U.S. Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa Ambassador Mike Hammer met with senior Egyptian government officials on July 25 to advance a diplomatic resolution on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that supports the water needs, economy, and livelihood of all Egyptians, Sudanese, and Ethiopians. Moreover, after the completion of the GERD, Egypt could run short of water if the operation of the GERD was not carefully coordinated with that of the AHD. Faced with the anachronistic Nile Waters Treaties on the one hand and the absence of a suitable replacement on the other, discussions about the Dam have fallen into something of a stalemate. General view of the talks on Hidase Dam, built on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia, between Sudan and Egypt in Khartoum, Sudan on October 04, 2019. You can revoke your consent to the site operator at any time by unsubscribing from the newsletter. For more on the background and history of these important relationships, see my book with former AGI Director Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Governing the Nile River Basin: The Search for a New Legal Regime., not be filled without a legally binding agreement, when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. A regional framework for the management of the Nile already existsthe Nile Basin Initiative mentioned abovewhich is a partnership among the Nile riparian states that was launched in 1999. In terms of the current status of talks, in 2019, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin began facilitating negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia which led to some tentative progress. Sudan is caught between the competing interests of Egypt and Ethiopia. Omar, A. However, as a result of the ability and willingness of Ethiopians at home and abroad to invest in the dam project, the government was able to raise a significant portion of the money needed to start the construction of the GERD. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will increase energy generation and development in Ethiopia, but it may have unwanted consequences for other Nile River users. First came the 1999 Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA). We shall begin with the former. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) takes an expansionist view towards decolonisation as seen in the Chagos Islands Advisory Opinion, in which it allowed the decolonisation agenda to trump the UKs lack of consent to any contentious proceedings. Afraid that a drought might appear during the filling period, Egypt wants the filling to take place over a much longer period. Ethiopian opinion is divided over the need for such huge investments in hydroelectric energy when the national network is still very underdeveloped and unable to cope. Given the importance of water to Ethiopian agriculture, it resulted in the tragic irony that, as Thurow put it, the land than feeds the Nile is unable to feed itself. The status quo started to change when Ethiopia began construction of the Dam, just east of its border with Sudan, in 2011. Ethiopia seems to have the legal upper hand in this dispute. Water Policy, 16(4), 595-608. Cooperation among the three countries has never been more important as demand for water rises, she added, due to factors such as population growth, urbanization and industrialization. Egypt says. Salman, S.M.A. The colonial powers have departed and so to continue to enforce treaties agreed based around their interests would be irrational. The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. If Egyptian authorities refuse to abandon these anachronistic treatieswhich have created untenable water-use rights that benefit only itself and Sudanall parties will remain at an impasse. Ethiopia argues that developing this resource is crucial to its economic development, and to overcoming poverty and famine, that have plagued the country in the past. His research indicates that rapid filling of the reservoir could lead to severe economic losses, though he notes that expanding groundwater extraction, adjusting the operation of Egypt's Aswan High Dam, and cultivating crops that require less water could help offset some of the impact. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will have negative impacts not only on Egypt but also on poor communities in Ethiopia as well as on its Nile Basin neighbours Ethiopia's strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. 67K views 6 months ago ETIOPIA The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the Blue Nile, is located around 14 km upstream of the Ethiopian-Sudan Border, at around 700 km from the Capital. Water scarcity is a growing problem. Ethiopia announced in April 2011 that it intends to build four large dams on the Nile, including one of the largest in the world, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (formerly known as Project X or the Grand Millennium Dam).This huge dam will flood 1,680 square kilometers of forest in northwest Ethiopia, near the Sudan border, and create a reservoir that is nearly twice as large as Lake Tana . This has now changed due to political consolidation over the past two decades and the advent of alternative sources of external finance (to the traditional multilateral development banks), not least from China (Gebreluel, 2014;IDS, 2013). The filling regime and operational methods of GERD will affect Egypt, in particular through its impact on the operation of its Aswan High Dam (AHD) which aims at mitigating the high variability of the Nile River flow. But the project has caused concern. Moreover, with GERD, Ethiopia opts for a hydropower expansion strategy on the Blue Nile, and not an irrigation strategy. In fact, about 85 % of the overall Nile flow originates on Ethiopian territory (Swain, 2011). Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Nile's water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. Learn the history of Toronto from the city's official website. A major reason the GERD is so controversial today is that it has not been subjected to thorough safety and impact studies, which could pose a grave threat to downriver nations. According to this narrative, the Blue Nile, or Abay in Amharic, is a purely Ethiopian river. This antipathy is not new, with Munzinger noting even in the nineteenth century that Ethiopia is a danger for Egypt [which] must either take over Ethiopia and Islamize it or, retain it in anarchy and misery. Still, the Dam brings the old enmity into sharp focus. Ethiopias strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. The failure of the latest talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has intensified tensions between Ethiopia and downstream states Egypt and Sudan. This is hardly a revelation, as this strategy has long been foremost in the minds of the ruling elites in Addis Ababa and supported by the international powers. Given the advancement of the dam construction - the GERD being, as of March 2015, 40% complete, according to Ethiopia - Egypt had good reason to reconsider its position (RANE, 2015). Finally, Ethiopia could make a strong case that the operation of the Dam is in alignment with the core principles of international water law, namely equitable utilisation and no significant harm. These are found in Articles 5 and 7 of the Water Courses Convention respectively and, despite the scepticism outlined above, arguably form part of customary international law. But with a generation capacity of 6.45GW, the Ethiopian government quoted the project as vital to the country's economic growth. Ethiopias Blue Nile Dam is an opportunity for regional collaboration, Developing countries are key to climate action, Self-organizing Nigeria: The antifragile state, Managing the compounding debt and climate crises. The former was initially funded by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, but these later withdrew for legal and other reasons. Already, on June 19, 2020, Egyptian authorities called upon the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to intervene after tripartite talks had failed to secure an agreement on the filling schedule for the GERD. A political requirement will be to agree on rules for filling the GERD reservoir and on operating rules for the GERD, especially during periods of drought. The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). Negotiations resumed three weeks after Al-Sisi took office in June 2014, and an agreement was made to resume negotiations - an achievementhailed by both Egypt and Ethiopia as a new chapter in relations between Egypt and Ethiopia based on openness and mutual understanding and cooperation (Omar, 2014). Indeed, the ICJ confirmed in Gabikovo-Nagymaros Project that all riparian states have a basic right to an equitable and reasonable sharing of the resources of the watercourse. Moreover, these principles were pulled through into the DoP agreed by both Egypt and Ethiopia. Water scarcity is a growing problem. At 6,000 MW, the dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed at 2017(IPoE, 2013). The three fillings hitherto, with the most recent in August 2022, imposed no discernible harm on downstream states. [35] The lack of international financing for projects on the Blue Nile River has persistently been attributed to Egypt's campaign to keep control on the Nile water share. Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. AFRICANGLOBE. While the water will return to its normal state before reaching Egypt, the damage to these populations will be permanent. However, by far the largest of these projects is the GERD, which was announced in 2010 and work on which was launched in 2011 by means of a nationwide fundraiser in which Ethiopian civil servants were reportedly obliged to volunteer a months salary to invest in GERD bonds. If it were to take place during a sequence of years in which the Blue Nile flow and the AHD reservoir itself was low, Egypt might not be able to withdraw sufficient water supplies to meet all of its agricultural needs. There are three key articles. Egypts Nile Water Policy under Sisi: Security Interests Promote Rapprochement with Ethiopia. Attia, H. & Saleh, M. (2021). Another difficulty for Egypt is that making this argument (i.e. "The Israeli installation of the missile system around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was completed after the Israeli work began in May 2019, considering that it is the first Israeli air defense system abroad that can launch (two types of missiles), the first with a range of 5 km, and the second with a range of 50 kilometer".