Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan Sign Tentative Dam Agreement

President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with the ministers of foreign affairs of Sudan (left), Egypt (center), and Ethiopia (right) in November 2019 to discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. (Wikimedia Commons)

Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan reached an initial agreement on the highly controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) after a meeting in Washington, D.C., from January 28 to 31. 

The preliminary deal, brokered by the U.S. treasury secretary and the president of the World Bank, stipulated that the dam would be filled in stages during the rainy season. It also contained details about mitigation mechanisms to adjust the dam’s filling and operation during dry periods and droughts.    

The $4 billion project will be built along Ethiopia’s border with Sudan on the Blue Nile, a tributary of the Nile River. The dam will be the largest hydropower dam in Africa. It is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to roughly ten coal plants. 

Addis Ababa announced the project in 2011, but it immediately became the subject of a years-long diplomatic crisis between Ethiopia and Egypt. Ethiopia views the dam as a mechanism for economic revitalization, with local newspaper Ethiopian Monitor describing the project as “the heart of Ethiopia’s manufacturing and industrial dreams.” The country currently faces an acute shortage of electricity, with 65 percent of its population still disconnected from the grid. However, the dam would generate enough electricity to power not only all of Ethiopia but also neighboring countries, including Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, and Eritrea. The GERD will make Ethiopia Africa’s top energy exporter and is also considered a point of national pride and sovereignty.

Egypt, on the other hand, views the dam as a threat to its already scarce water supplies. The Blue Nile converges with the Nile River’s other main tributary, the White Nile, in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, before flowing through Egypt toward the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt depends on the Nile for about 90 percent of its irrigation and drinking water and fears that the construction of the massive dam along the Blue Nile will restrict water flow. Egypt, which is largely desert, is already short of water and is concerned that any further reduction in water supply would severely threaten its population of more than 100 million. 

Considering the critical interests involved, reconciling the differences between the major players has been difficult. In March 2019, International Crisis Group raised concerns that the high stakes of the project—as Ethiopia perceives the dam as a “defining national development project” and Egypt sees the potential loss of water as an “existential threat”—could draw the Nile basin countries into conflict. 

In hopes of resolving the years-long deadlock between the two countries, the ministers of foreign affairs and water resources of Egypt and Ethiopia met recently with delegates from the United States, the World Bank, and Sudan in Washington, D.C. The ministers tentatively agreed to wait until the rainy season to fill the reservoir in stages, alleviating Egyptian fears that rapidly filling the dam would reduce downstream water flow. 

The ministers have instructed their technical and legal teams to prepare a final agreement that reflects the preliminary deal from Washington, as well as several other aspects of the project, including  the dam’s safety and provisions for dispute resolution. Representatives of the three countries are scheduled to meet in Washington again from February 12 to 13 to approve the final draft of the agreement and plan to sign it by the end of February.