Compass World: What's the Dam Problem?
US President Trump met with (left to right) foreign ministers Abdalla (Sudan), Shoukry (Egypt), and Andargachew (Ethiopia) on November 6 to state his support for ongoing dam negotiations. He was joined by US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin (farthest right). (Wikimedia Commons)
by Advait Arun (SFS ‘22)
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Not-so-Civil Engineering
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan have a big dam problem. A very big dam, and a very big problem, to provide clarity. While the three countries signed a truce Wednesday over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), essentially promising not to get violent, tension remains over one salient question: how fast will Ethiopia start filling their dam’s reservoir?
The dam is 80 percent complete, and Ethiopia shows no sign of deviating from its planned construction schedule. Their government intended to fill the dam within five to seven years; Egypt insisted it take no less than twelve, at most twenty years.
The Wednesday truce, signed in Washington and brokered jointly by the US Treasury Department and the World Bank, stipulated only that the GERD would be filled faster during the rainy season and slower during times of drought, to preserve adequate water access for Egypt and Sudan.
The negotiators, however, kicked the hard questions down the road: “subsequent stages of filling will be done according to a mechanism to be agreed that determines release based upon the hydrological conditions of the Blue Nile and the level of the GERD.” They will reconvene at the end of January.
No Splashing Matter
Since the 1960s, the Ethiopian government has pursued a dam on the Blue Nile, which promises huge amounts of clean power generation. Sudan, once opposed, eventually backed the project for its potential electricity and irrigation benefits.
Egypt has remained the spoiler to negotiations, but not without reason: the Nile River provides 90 percent of Egypt’s water, and 57 percent of the Nile River’s water comes from Ethiopia’s Blue Nile, its tributary river. The GERD’s proposed reservoir could hold over a year’s worth of river water flow.
Were Ethiopia to fill the reservoir too quickly, Egyptian water supply would drop precipitously. Moreover, it might incapacitate Egypt’s Aswan High Dam, which generates most of the country’s electricity, by critically lowering the water levels in its reservoir, Lake Nasser.
Ethiopia began construction in 2011, while the “Arab Spring” threw Egypt into turmoil. The fait accompli was not received well: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly threatened, essentially, war over the dam’s construction. (Not a water-gun fight, but a water gun-fight.)
Cry me a River
Compared to war, negotiations are certainly preferable. But Egypt may not be so happy about the results of the Wednesday truce. Mada Masr reported that, according to official sources within the Egyptian government and negotiating team, the Trump administration is actually pressing Egypt to accept Ethiopia’s minimum concessions, no more, in return for unspecified compensation by the World Bank.
A source also described how, under the current truce, Ethiopia will fail to meet necessary obligations: “Firstly, that its annual share of water will be less than 40 billion cubic meters; secondly, that it will provide Egypt with an early notification before the dam’s operations begin; and thirdly, that the operations of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be compatible with the safe operation of the Aswan High Dam — specifically, that the High Dam would be capable of producing sufficient electricity.” Another one of Egypt’s relevant concerns is the lack of a contingency plan for a drought during the reservoir’s filling process.
The negotiators will return to Washington at the end of the month. How they conclude will set a crucial precedent for future water-rights negotiations around the world, as resource scarcity and economic development needs force more and more states to consider each others’ demands. After all, it would not do well for them to dam the flow of progress where progress is possible.