disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam
They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. This is on the basis of the principles of State succession as outlined in the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States (VCSS). Test. Basically, Ethiopia should cooperate with the other riparian states in developing and adopting an effective drought mitigation protocol, one that includes the possibility that GERD managers may have to release water from the reservoir, when necessary, to mitigate droughts. As they consider this controversial issue, all 11 riparian countries should seek to improve relations among themselves beyond their relationship with the Nile, especially in mutually beneficial areas such as trade; educational and cultural exchanges; the management of natural resources, including water; dealing with threats to peace and security, including the suppression and prevention of terrorism and extremism; and confronting major challenges to economic growth and poverty alleviation, such as climate change, widespread illiteracy, and poor infrastructure. [35] l Coordinates 111255N 3505 . l located on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia . 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). Most recently, there have been suggestions that the African Union should resolve the disagreement. A Tripartite National Committee (TNC), consisting of national experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, was constituted in order to determine principles of cooperation. Match. These conflicts could take the form of international armed conflicts (between states), non-international armed conflicts between a group and a state, or conflicts between non-state groups. What is your opinion on Ethiopia's chances of completing the "Great Still, Egypt may be playing with fire if it were to press the legal significance of the DoP. to hydrate farmland), it would effectively be taken from downstream states like Egypt. It has also expressed concerns about the potential impact the initial filling of the dam will have on areas downstream. 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). Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. (2017). 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. Challenges for water sharing in the Nile basin: changing geo-politics and changing climate. 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. 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). Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Wikipedia It will also give Ethiopia more control . Water Policy, 16(4), 595-608. Ethiopia completes third filling of Blue Nile mega-dam reservoir In 1964, the US Land Reclamation Bureau conducted a study for the Ethiopian government, identifying 33 hydraulic projects in the Blue Nile Basin. The researchers looked at the dynamic interactions between the Nile's hydrology and infrastructure and Egypt's economy. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Its Effect on Egypt An Ethiopian national flag is seen at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 19, 2022. Egypts original goal was to have the project purely and simply cancelled. African Union, Israel and the crisis of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam It's very unpredictable and it can be very dangerous," says Pottinger. The unilateral decision taken by Ethiopia - which never recognised the 1959 agreement but had previously not been able to challenge it in fact - to build the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2011 represents a major political challenge to the 1959 Agreement. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a 1.1-mile-long concrete colossus, is set to become the largest hydropower plant in Africa. 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). The Dam is being built by Ethiopia on the Nile River and is fiercely opposed by Egypt. Both countries are concerned that without a clear and binding agreement with Ethiopia, the latter will have full control of the passage of water from the GERD during droughts, which would be devastating to the lives of millions in Egypt and Sudan. GIGA Focus No. Sudan, caught between the competing interests of both Egypt and Ethiopia, has been changing its stance on the issue. The Zenawi concept of a Strong Ethiopia envisions the country as a powerful hydroelectric energy hub exporting electricity to Djibouti and Somalia in the east, Kenya and Uganda to the south, and Sudan to the west. Because the strategy of land allocation and dam construction relied on senior executive decisions and foreign funding from China, above all, the government was largely freed of pressures of transparency and accountability. 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. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a critical project that intends to provide hydroelectricity to support the livelihoods of millions of people in the region. Test. (2014). The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam In 2019, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee warned that the Gibe III Dam had already disrupted the seasonal patterns of Lake Turkana and that this would reduce fish life and harm local communities dependent on the Lake. It will take between eight and ten years to fill the new dam. Why is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam contentious? Attia, H. & Saleh, M. (2021). The Grand Renaissance Dam and prospects for cooperation on the Eastern Nile. The failure of the latest talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has intensified tensions between Ethiopia and downstream states Egypt and Sudan. Disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam jobs Hence, it is hard to see how Egypt could make a compelling argument that it has been harmed by the Dam. The $4 billion hydroelectric dam . This represents a new challenge to the basins current hydro-political regime and status quo, as it may drive Sudans interest in renegotiating its current quota(Link et al., 2012;Whittington et al., 2014). The GERD and the Revival of the Egyptian-Sudanese Dispute over the Nile Waters. Practically from the outset, the World Bank and international donors withdrew funding due to a lack of transparency, driven home when it was learned that the construction had begun without a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency in Ethiopia. It signifies that Egypts de facto veto power on major upstream dams has been broken, and it clearly demonstrates the political will of Ethiopia to develop its water infrastructure even in the absence of a comprehensive basin agreement. At 6,000 MW, the dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed at 2017(IPoE, 2013). Although Ethiopia has argued that the hydroelectric GERD will not significantly affect the flow of water into the Nile, Egypt, which depends almost entirely on the Nile waters for household and commercial uses, sees the dam as a major threat to its water security. The 10-year filling time of GERD will likely contribute to fastened salinisation in Egypt. Another argument Egypt might adduce concerns the DoP. It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. However, it also makes useful concessions to Egypt which it may wish to press. l It is in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 15 km east of the border with Sudan. 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. It and several other large dams in Ethiopia could turn the country into Africa's hydropower hub. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam located in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 45 km east of the border with Sudan. The toll on the local communities affected by the dams has been enormous. Cairo Controversy prevailed in the Egyptian public opinion, after Deltares, a Dutch advisory institute, announced on Sept. 15 its withdrawal from a study to assess the risks that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is under construction on the Blue Nile, can cause to Egypt and Sudan. This article quantifies the major benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project for Sudan and Egypt based on GERDP technical design and quantitative analysis. The situation seemed to improve in the beginning of 2015 when tripartite negotiations were held in order to determine principles of cooperation. Indeed, Sudan had initially opposed the Dam but changed its position in 2012 after consultations with Ethiopia. Learn. Across Ethiopia, poor farmers and rich business executives alike . As a result, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has recognised water security as a possible threat to international peace. For example, Ethiopians and Egyptians are more likely to understand and appreciate the challenges that they face, particularly in the areas of water security, climate change, food production, and poverty alleviation, if they regularly interact with each other and engage in more bottom-up, participatory and inclusive approaches to the resolution of their conflicts. Sudan and Egypt, which rely most heavily on the . This dam, set to be the largest in Africa in terms of power capacity, continues to cause disagreement between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on filling and operation strategies. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Agreement within Reach, Under-Secretary The former was initially funded by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, but these later withdrew for legal and other reasons. "I came to Cairo on my first official trip to the region to hear . The countrys 2003 development plan introduced many more, and the Ethiopian government launched an ambitious PR campaign to encourage donor nations and international funding agencies to support these projects financially and ideologically as the highway to Ethiopian development and prosperity. As a hydroelectric project, the dam is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity. However, this threatens the basin's long-term sustainability (as water use expands beyond what is environmentally feasible) and suboptimal in terms of capital allocation (as higher water use upstream may make downstream projects uneconomical (Swain, 2011). Similarly, in 2018, the UNSC noted the water security risks in African nations such as Somalia, Sudan and Mali. The Chinese then took over the funding amidst heightened international concern regarding the social, technical, and environmental repercussions of the Ethiopian dams. Egypt has also escalated its call to the international community to get involved. . The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Source of cooperation or - USGS per year, that would constitute a drought and, according to Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia would have to release some of the water in the dams reservoir to deal with the drought. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a 6,450 MW hydropower project nearing completion on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, located about 30 km upstream of the border with Sudan. On the contrary, GERD has a positive impact in terms of reducing flood and silting and boost water conservation as well as generate energy for the region. At the same. In addition, no independent, multilateral Environmental and Social Impact Assessments has been carried out suggesting that Ethiopia is reneging from the 2015 Declaration of Principles (Kandeel, 2020). The strategy and its surrounding narrative have attracted large influxes of foreign investment in the Ethiopian agrarian sector, with multi-million dollar leases of agricultural land to foreigners generally linked to irrigation projects planned in tandem with the construction of the dam. One senior advisor to former Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi alluded to it when he said that Ethiopia will supply the electricity, Sudan the food, and Egypt the money. To which we might add, and South Sudan will supply the oil.. Ethiopia: The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
