Issue No. 251

The Niles Turbulent Waters

Stretching over 1,780 metres across and 140 metres high, upon completion, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will be the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa. The dam, constructed in Ethiopia's western Benishangul-Gumuz region, could be an astonishing piece of engineering-- if it can produce sufficient electricity– and the focus of a 13-year diplomatic spat between Cairo, Khartoum, and Addis. Particularly since 2020, it has been repeatedly thrust into the spotlight as relations between Egypt and Ethiopia have deteriorated. While the spiralling regional tensions are currently focused on Ethiopia's east, in Somalia, many of the publicly traded barbs between Cairo and Addis have remained focused on the GERD.
 
Much of the long dispute over the control of the Nile River water basin can be found in the colonial Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1929. The UK, which controlled Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya, among other Nile Basin countries, negotiated 'on behalf' of Ethiopia with Egypt over Nile access. A second treaty known as the Nile Waters Agreement was signed in 1959 between Sudan and Cairo, and cemented the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty with some adjustments for the benefits of the two countries. It is on this basis that Egypt continues to argue that it can veto upstream actions by Ethiopia.
 
Ethiopia, on the other hand, asserts that these two treaties overlook its developmental needs and that the GERD will be critical to supplying electricity to its ballooned population. In August, the third and fourth 400 MW turbines of an anticipated 13 were activated in a grand ceremony. Yet the promises that the majority of Ethiopia would be connected to electricity through the dam have yet to materialise, with the country's grid remaining underdeveloped.
 
The colonial-era treaties afforded few rights to upstream countries, with Egypt and Sudan allocating themselves the lion's share of annual water flow in 1959, despite 85% of the Blue Nile coming from Ethiopia's northern highlands. Considering that the GERD can hold an average year-and-a-half of the Blue Nile's water flow, it has been quite the reversal of fortune for Khartoum and Cairo. With Egypt's population overwhelmingly dependent on the world's longest river, Cairo considers it a vital national security interest.
 
Despite being aware of the existential nature in which Egypt and Sudan regard the Blue Nile, Addis did not consult either when it launched the GERD project in April 2011 under the Meles Zenawi government. Across three successive prime ministers, Ethiopia has not wavered from its argument that it is a matter of national sovereignty. In 2012, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the new government in Cairo, Ethiopia, and Sudan agreed that international experts would study the possible impacts of the GERD. Ethiopia had initially delayed the necessary environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) of the mega-dam, so the 2012 agreement marked an acquiescence of sorts on multiple sides. A Declaration of Principles signed in March 2015, which included an ESIA implementation, appeared to lay the groundwork for a more detailed framework for the dam's filling and operation. Addis, however, reneged on this, and refused the ESIA.
 
Egypt has repeatedly sought a regularised and slower filling of the GERD to protect the country's water security and insulate itself from increasingly regular episodes of drought. There have been moments of convergence– particularly in February 2020 when it appeared that Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan would finalise an agreement under lengthy US and World Bank-driven negotiations. But, again, Ethiopia retreated, arguing that it would undermine the country's sovereignty. Since then, the talks have yielded little progress, including under the African Union, with relations remaining largely poor between Addis and Cairo.

The latest talks collapsed at the beginning of the year after Egypt spied an opportunity to withdraw and help drive the wedge between Addis and Mogadishu in the aftermath of the Somaliland-Ethiopia Memorandum of Understanding.
 
The possibly ameliorating role of Khartoum between Egypt and Ethiopia over GERD has also been lost in the conflagration ripping apart Sudan. Before the war erupted in April 2023, the country had been aligned with Cairo, and supported a legally binding agreement on the GERD's operations. But Sudan also stood to gain from elements of the GERD, including the regularised water outflow and possible electricity generated from the immense dam. Rising tensions between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and economic crises, however, distracted Khartoum from the massive dam just a few dozen kilometres from its border.
 
Today, the capital has been laid to waste by the warring parties, and the military government is holed up in Port Sudan, insisting that it will control Sudan for decades to come. Unsurprisingly, in mid-August, the Egypt-backed military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said that his government was still "aligned and in agreement" with Cairo over the GERD. The fate of Sudan's technical GERD task force, which was once comprised of Ministry of Water Resource officials alongside SAF and General Intelligence Services officials, is unclear. It arguably matters little, though, considering that the army does not even control both banks of the Nile in Khartoum.
 
Any proxy war between Egypt and Ethiopia in Somalia could further threaten the GERD operation. In mid-2020, Egypt's military regime stoked rumours that it could launch an airstrike on the GERD before back-tracking. In any event of catastrophic damage to the massive reservoirs, Sudanese communities in the Blue Nile state would particularly suffer. The country has seen the recent devastating impact of a collapsed dam when the Arbaat dam that supplies Port Sudan burst in August. Dozens of people were killed, and entire villages swamped in the ensuing deluge. If Ethiopia, too, were to accidentally or deliberately release a significant proportion of the dam's waters, it could flood towns in both Sudan and Egypt.
 
The politics of water at the local and international levels will continue to rise in importance as the climate crisis worsens in the coming years. Today, though, decades-long disputes and historic grievances are being pulled into the rising tensions between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia. And the GERD dispute can also be framed as part of the broader wrestle for either sea or water access and influence on both sides of the Red Sea in recent years. With tensions so heightened, any prospects for a return to productive negotiations over the GERD are essentially nil, with Sudan collapsing and Egypt and Ethiopia at each other's throats. Even the format of the talks remains contentious, with Ethiopia typically preferring the African Union to mediate, while Egypt favours other formats, including under US auspices. With no clear resolution in sight, the GERD remains a flashpoint in an increasingly fragile region.

By the Ethiopian Cable team