While such dams also come with long-term benefits to local populations, the chief beneficiary will always be the state, which reaps profits from the sale of surplus electricity. Improved relations among Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Sudanese can go a long way in enhancing the ability of their leaders to negotiate and adopt agreements that reflect the interests of citizens, especially regarding economic development and poverty alleviation. It seeks to build an infrastructure for regional water hegemony, positioning it, at the very least, in such a way that it can exchange water for oil. Despite the fact that newly independent Sudan in the late 1950s was literally forced by a dominant Egypt into a highly asymmetrical water-sharing arrangement, Sudan has rarely challenged this arrangement. Therefore, a negotiated position that favours Ethiopia is likely to be reached once it becomes politically palatable enough inside Egypt. Consequently, under the principle of pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt, it could demonstrate that those treaties cannot bind it as it was a third party and did not give its consent. These discussions highlighted benefits such as more consistent water flow, minimising the risks of flood and drought, and the potential for discounted hydroelectricity produced by the Dam. The dispute escalated in 2011 when Ethiopia began construction of a major new dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), in the absence of any agreement with downstream Egypt. 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. The filling regime and operational methods of GERD will affect Egypt, in particular through its impact on the operation of its Aswan High Dam (AHD) which aims at mitigating the high variability of the Nile River flow. Ultimately, however, Egypt did not sign the CFA (nor did Sudan) hence it does not resolve the dispute. This is hardly a revelation, as this strategy has long been foremost in the minds of the ruling elites in Addis Ababa and supported by the international powers. For example, in 2017, the UNSC highlighted the security risks of water stress in the Lake Chad Basin Region, affecting Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, based on a combination of water scarcity, drought, desertification and land degradation. However, by far the largest of these projects is the GERD, which was announced in 2010 and work on which was launched in 2011 by means of a nationwide fundraiser in which Ethiopian civil servants were reportedly obliged to volunteer a months salary to invest in GERD bonds. when did construction of the dam begin? At that point, the lake that . The Ethiopian government has always availed itself of its power to transfer local populations off land it decides to declare a public resource. The change of government in Egypt led to a more conciliatory approach (Von Lossow & Roll, 2015). For more on the background and history of these important relationships, see my book with former AGI Director Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Governing the Nile River Basin: The Search for a New Legal Regime., not be filled without a legally binding agreement, when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. Addis Ababa has said the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $4bn hydropower project, is crucial to its economic development and to provide power. Second came the 2015 Declaration of Principles (DoP) which concerned the Dam specifically (rather than the Nile more broadly). Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan have expressed concerns over the impacts of the dam on their water supply. It's free to sign up and bid on jobs. This is an intergovernmental partnership to provide a forum for consultation and coordination for the sustainable management and development of shared water. 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. If the relevant parties can agree to these goals, the agreement, in the end, will need to include technical language that ensures equitable sharing of the 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. As a result, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has recognised water security as a possible threat to international peace. Owned and operated by the Ethiopian Electric Power company, the 145-m-tall roller-compacted concrete gravity dam . 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. 2. Feb 11th 2021 DAMS HAVE several uses. The toll on the local communities affected by the dams has been enormous. l Coordinates 111255N 3505 . In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. Ethiopia argues that developing this resource is crucial to its economic development, and to overcoming poverty and famine, that have plagued the country in the past. Recently, the tensions among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile have escalated, particularly after Ethiopia announced that it had started filling the GERDs reservoir, an action contrary to Egypts mandate that the dam not be filled without a legally binding agreement over the equitable allocation of the Niles waters. In response, Ethiopia threatened military force to defend the dam and protect its interests (The New Arab, 2020a). Today, however, Ethiopia is building the Grand Renaissance Dam and, with it, Ethiopia will physically control the Blue Nile Gorgethe primary source of most of the Nile waters. (eds.). The Grand Renaissance Dam and prospects for cooperation on the Eastern Nile. Second, regarding the 1902 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty, although Ethiopia was a party and although that instrument does deal with the flow of water on the Nile, its terms are strictly limited. As a consequence, Ethiopia has not been able to make significant use of the rivers waters. It is perhaps the most glaring demonstration of environmental or climate injustice that the youngest continent (60 percent of the population is below the age of twenty-five) is also the one that has historically least contributed to the industrial emissions of greenhouse gases yet is likely the one that will be hardest affected by meteorological "I came to Cairo on my first official trip to the region to hear . It also created a counter message to Egypts powerful the Nile is Egypt narrative that is familiar around the world. Monday January 2, 2017. 4. Subsequent impact studies were performed by the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank, and in the light of the results, these banks cancelled their funding for Gibe III. July 26, 2022. In terms of the current status of talks, in 2019, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin began facilitating negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia which led to some tentative progress. The treaties also purported to give Egypt veto power over upstream projects. The politicisation of the Niles water and the utilisation of development projects to achieve political ends are not new phenomena. The situation seemed to improve in the beginning of 2015 when tripartite negotiations were held in order to determine principles of cooperation. 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). 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. Similarly, in 2018, the UNSC noted the water security risks in African nations such as Somalia, Sudan and Mali. It has also expressed concerns about the potential impact the initial filling of the dam will have on areas downstream. Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. The 1902 Treaty did not preclude Ethiopia from undertaking works that might reduce, but not arrest, the flow of waters. 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. Water scarcity is a growing problem. 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. Omar, A. khadsyy Plus. Ethiopias strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. Many historical grievances and distrust remain on the Ethiopian side regarding Egypt (Gebreluel, 2014), with some Ethiopian journalists assessing the 'Declaration of Principles' as being more in favour of Egypt than Ethiopia (Zegabi East Africa News, 2015). However, Ethiopia ultimately refused to sign the draft agreement. AFRICANGLOBE. Chinese banks provided financing for the purchase of the turbines and electrical equipment for the hydroelectric plants. According to this narrative, the Blue Nile, or Abay in Amharic, is a purely Ethiopian river. It imports about half its food products and recycles about 25 bcm of water annually. The researchers looked at the dynamic interactions between the Nile's hydrology and infrastructure and Egypt's economy. Note that, under Article 62(2) VCLT, territorial treaties are excepted from the change in circumstances rule. According to some estimates, the Ethiopian government had to arrange for the resettlement of 1.5 million people in the four regions of Gambela, Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz. In turn, Egypt water policy and management should be changes or modified to overcome the great challenges. The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. It's very unpredictable and it can be very dangerous," says Pottinger. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam located in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 45 km east of the border with Sudan. 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. Salman, S.M.A. At this point, though, the GERD is nearly completed, and so Egypt has shifted its position to trying to secure a political agreement over the timetable for filling the GERDs reservoir and how the GERD will be managed, particularly during droughts. The New Arab (2020b). Still, Egypt may be playing with fire if it were to press the legal significance of the DoP. Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. 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. First woman appointed to the Canada Supreme Court. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 79-110. Since its inception, there have been two, highly contentious, products. Government of the United States of America. In fact, about 85 % of the overall Nile flow originates on Ethiopian territory (Swain, 2011). Ethiopias Blue Nile Dam is an opportunity for regional collaboration, Developing countries are key to climate action, Self-organizing Nigeria: The antifragile state, Managing the compounding debt and climate crises. This is because it is traditionally understood to refer to waterways that form intrinsic parts of international boundaries. Alaa al-Zawahiri, a member of the Egyptian National Panel of Experts studying the effects of the Renaissance Dam, believes as much. A significant segment of local opinion is also aware of the well-known problems that come with mega-dams wherever they are built, among them population displacements and resettlement, reductions in the quality of life, the spread of waterborne diseases, salinisation and the loss of productive and profitable lands, more intense competition over the remaining available land, and losses of cultural and historic heritage. In June 2020, tensions escalated when Ethiopia declared its intent to fill the dam in July without an agreement, which again led to Egypt and Sudan requesting UNSC intervention on the matter (Kandeel, 2020). 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 GERD and the Revival of the Egyptian-Sudanese Dispute over the Nile Waters. Egypt has taken various efforts in a bid to secure its water security in the context of the Nile River. While the water will return to its normal state before reaching Egypt, the damage to these populations will be permanent. 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. Even in 2023, there are only 46 state parties, with key actors such as the US, Canada and Brazil remaining outside the Conventions regime. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) takes an expansionist view towards decolonisation as seen in the Chagos Islands Advisory Opinion, in which it allowed the decolonisation agenda to trump the UKs lack of consent to any contentious proceedings. Perhaps the most significant project in the 2003 plan was the Chemoga-Yeda Hydroelectric Project, a series of five small dams on Blue Nile tributaries and two dams on the Genale River with a couple more envisioned for a later phase. A political requirement will be to agree on rules for filling the GERD reservoir and on operating rules for the GERD, especially during periods of drought. What could have been strictly technical negotiations have turned into a political deadlock. If it were to take place during a sequence of years in which the Blue Nile flow and the AHD reservoir itself was low, Egypt might not be able to withdraw sufficient water supplies to meet all of its agricultural needs. It is therefore intrinsically connected with the question of land ownership. In the modern era, the US used water to blackmail Egypt. One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? Flashcards. First came the 1999 Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA). The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). The establishment of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, up 145 and a storage capacity of 74 . Both Egypt and Ethiopia could make arguments in support of their positions. Tawfik, Rawia Discussion Paper 5/2015 . To African commentators in recent decades, massive investments in mega-energy and irrigation projects were emblematic of the African economic emergence, and Ethiopia at that time vaunted itself as one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. 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. The withdrawal from the project by Deltares has been met by a wave of objections in Egypt for fear . Perhaps the most obvious argument that Ethiopia may want to make is a rebuttal to Egypts continued reliance on the Nile Water Treaties. EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images. However, the Convention took almost twenty years to enter into force (from 1997 to 2014) due to the lack of necessary ratifications by states. Concern has focused in particular on Lake Turkana, which derives 90 per cent of its water from the Omo River on which the Gilgel Gibe III Dam was built. 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). According to Baradei, hydropower dams create immense turbulence in the water, where chemical reactions such as dissolved oxygen can destroy fauna and flora. Also, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry later held the Egyptian side accountable for failure of these negotiations. The various warnings by experts about the dangers of the new Ethiopian dam have begun to cause panic among Egyptians, to the point of belief that the Aswan Dam will collapse once the Renaissance is completed. Since plans for Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) were first announced in 2011, Cairo has viewed the project as a serious threat to the country's water supply. Learn the history of Toronto from the city's official website. Neither the Egyptian nor the Ethiopian governments received positive domestic feedback on their agreement. Negotiations resumed three weeks after Al-Sisi took office in June 2014, and an agreement was made to resume negotiations - an achievementhailed by both Egypt and Ethiopia as a new chapter in relations between Egypt and Ethiopia based on openness and mutual understanding and cooperation (Omar, 2014). The significance of Gulf involvement was highlighted by the . The Chinese then took over the funding amidst heightened international concern regarding the social, technical, and environmental repercussions of the Ethiopian dams. The Ethiopian government is spending $4.7 billion to construct the 1,780-meter dam across the Blue Nile. Even without taking the dam into account, the largely desert country is short of water. Four of these would potentially be located on the main river and one would eventually evolve into the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). In: Yihdego, Z. et al. to hydrate farmland), it would effectively be taken from downstream states like Egypt. 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. The other riparian states can then be brought in, either through the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) or some other regional framework, to secure an agreement that is binding on all the states. This was an attempt at a wholesale replacement for the Nile Waters Treaties. The so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) is Africa's biggest hydroelectric project to date. 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.
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