Whittington, D. et al. 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. 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. The GERD and the Revival of the Egyptian-Sudanese Dispute over the Nile Waters. Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. Learn. Flashcards. Learn. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. 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. Al Jazeera (2020). 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). Initially opposed to the GERD, Sudan later expressed support for its construction in 2013, claiming that it would serve the interests of all three nations (Maguid, 2017). Ethiopias dam-construction strategy threatens not only Kenyas water-resource development efforts but also Somalias water security, as is evidenced by Ethiopias development plans for the Jubba and Shebelle Rivers. As a hydroelectric project, the dam is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity. Ethiopia Needs the United States to Act as an Honest Broker in the Nile . Across Ethiopia, poor farmers and rich business executives alike . By Ambassador Gurjit Singh*. For a decade, Egypt and Ethiopia have been at a diplomatic stalemate over the Nile's management. The Grand Renaissance Dam - Ethiopia's greatest risk Egypt wants control and guarantees for its share of Nile waters. They generate electricity, store water for crop irrigation and help to prevent floods. On March 4, 1909, the Copyright Act of 1909 became law, making infringement of a copyright a federal crime for the first time. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia - Webuild Project The above-mentioned Gilgel Gibe III Dam stood out as the worlds most controversial dam until the GERD. 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). Since then, there has been a constant stream of complaints regarding the social and environmental impacts on downriver areas, including large displacements of local populations. IDS (2013). Ethiopia starts generating power from River Nile dam - BBC News Nevertheless, Egypt must not use sympathy for its water vulnerability as a weapon to frustrate the efforts of the other riparians to secure an agreement that is balanced, fair, and equitable. Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the dam. In the end, all 11 riparian states must understand that the way forward calls for the establishment of a meaningful resource-sharing agreement, one that sees and recognizes the Nile River as a regional watercourse. Although Egypt has persistently argued that the 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan is the legal framework for the allocation of the waters of the Nile, Ethiopia and other upstream riparian states reject that argument. 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.. Attempts to resolve the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute over the past decade have reached a deadlock. Egypt has taken various efforts in a bid to secure its water security in the context of the Nile River. Over the years, Egypt has used its extensive diplomatic connections and the colonial-era 1929 and 1959 agreements to successfully prevent the construction of any major infrastructure projects on the tributaries of the Nile. The Chinese donors who have agreed to fund it have performed no independent social or environmental impact reviews. The Friends of Lake Turkana, an NGO representing indigenous groups whose livelihoods are dependent on the Lake, filed a suit to halt the construction of the dam. As a result, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has recognised water security as a possible threat to international peace. Negative impacts of the GERD - Opinion - Ahram Online A more recent trilateral meeting mediated by the African Union in mid-July, however, appeared to diffuse the situation with all three countries reaching a major common understanding towards achieving an agreement (Al Jazeera, 2020). In particular, the DoP takes a very strict approach to the no significant harm rule. First, as noted above, Ethiopia contributes 86% of the water in the Nile and so it seems only natural that it has an equitable claim to using Nile waters to aid growth in its impoverished economy. (2014). While the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is taking shape on . Lastly, over-year storage facilities upstream in Ethiopia will allow Sudan to increase its water use. Ethiopia could argue that those imperial powers did not foresee the decolonisation of Africa and that this represented a watershed event that profoundly changed the foundation on which the Nile Water Treaties were constructed. March 14, 2020, 6:57 AM. Although the immediate issue at stakesecuring a technical agreement on the filling of the GERDs reservoiris among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the broader and longer-term goal should be for all 11 statesincluding Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea, and South Sudanto agree on a legal regime for the management of this important watercourse. 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. Another impressive snippet of information is that the Government of Ethiopia is financing the entire project, along with loans mainly from China. 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. These parallel developments appear to be elements of a bigger hydro-political strategy wherein the riparian countries aim to increase their water utilisation to put facts on the ground (and underpin legal claims based on those uses) and increase their bargaining position for renegotiations of volumetric water allocations. (2020). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a Big Deal - BORGEN The principles of cooperation have not been translated into specific technical agreements on dam management (and more), in the context of difficult domestic politics for both sides. In an effort to forestall potential water conflicts such as the one brewing around the Dam, an increasing number of bilateral and multilateral water agreements have been concluded in recent decades. 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 1959 agreement allocated all the Nile Rivers waters to Egypt and Sudan, leaving 10 billion cubic meters (b.c.m.) [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. 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). 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. A Grand New Dam on the Nile - NASA A series of talks since then have largely failed to produce a consensus among the concerned countries, with tensions rising again after Ethiopia announced its intention to begin filling the dam in July 2020. The significance of Gulf involvement was highlighted by the . The Government of Egypt, a country which relies heavily on the waters of the Nile, has demanded that Ethiopia cease construction on the dam as a preconditions to negotiations, sought regional support for its position, and some political leaders have discussed methods to sabotage it. It concludes that Ethiopias legal position is far stronger and that a negotiated agreement in its favour is the most likely outcome of the dispute. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. Washington Must Act Now to Save Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam The US has revived diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute sparked by Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the Nile. 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. It's free to sign up and bid on jobs. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) constitutes a real crisis for the Egyptian regime, where Ethiopia several times blamed Egypt for the failure of negotiations conducted between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia on the dam. This is good news for Egypt and Sudan as hydropower means little actual water withdrawal. The Nile riparians must understand that the river is a common resource whose effective management must be approached from a basin-wide perspective. Review a brief history of copyright in the United States. for seepage and evaporation, but afforded no water to Ethiopia or other upstream riparian statesthe sources of most of the water that flows into the Nile. 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. Article 7 provides that watercourse states must take all appropriate measures to prevent significant harm to other watercourse States and that, where harm does occur, there shall be consultations to discuss the question of compensation. Finally, Article 8 requires that watercourse states cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith.. Egypt's 100 million people rely on the Nile for 90% of the country's water needs. (2017). Furthermore, resolving conflicts involving the Nile River is most likely to be more successful through improvements in relations between the riparians and not through external intervention. India dispatch: Supreme Court limits DNA paternity testing in divorce proceedings, prioritizing childrens privacy rights, US dispatch: Texas case could limit access to abortion medication, Copyright infringement made federal crime. Poverty alleviation, which is a major concern for all Nile Basin countries, could form the basis of a cooperative arrangement between all the Niles riparians. Egypt faces another dam challenge - Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. Egypt, fearing major disruptions to its access to the Niles waters, originally intended to prevent even the start of the GERDs construction. In the relatively unlikely scenario that the above points failed, Ethiopia could argue that there has been such a change of circumstances since the Nile Waters Treaties were concluded that they ought to be terminated. The Nile is not a boundary-delimiting river, hence Ethiopia would almost certainly argue that the exception should not be applied here. The New Arab (2020a). Environmental Impacts Of Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam On The According to this narrative, the Blue Nile, or Abay in Amharic, is a purely Ethiopian river. Ultimately, all the water is allowed to pass downstream such that there is no net loss of flow (with the exception of water lost to evaporation). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a 1.1-mile-long concrete colossus, is set to become the largest hydropower plant in Africa. The Politics Of The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Analysis 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. 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 . . In terms of the old or anachronistic law, two of the Nile Water Treaties do not bind Ethiopia meanwhile the third does not actually preclude the construction of a dam.