GERD key for new hope, friendship and cooperation

The Rwandan New Times in its recent article entitled, “Why Ethiopia is in the eyes of most for investment” disclosed how Ethiopia has been striving to and succeeded to some extent in transforming its economy from agriculture-led to industrialization.

One of the most striking points raised by New Times is the focus given by the Ethiopian government for infrastructure development. True to the words of the newspaper, the Ethiopian government has been significantly dedicating much of its resources on infrastructural development “which has contributed to the growth and attraction of FDI making Ethiopia one of the leading FDI destinations in Africa.”

The newspaper forecasts that Ethiopia is likely to succeed in its efforts to become a middle-income economy by the year 2025. And the reason for such success, according to New Times, is Ethiopia’s government ability to identify the major national problems and putting the right policy measures to address them effectively.

“Success begins from proper identification and analysis of the problem at hand. The secret to these successes is correct identification of the momentous challenges that Ethiopia has been facing. High rate of unemployment, shortage of finance/capital were identified as primary challenges for investment.

Consequently, the government devised policies and strategies towards addressing these challenges through paying due attention to labor and capital intensive investment areas followed by agricultural sector development which is the main source of employment opportunity for more than 80 per cent of the entire population.”

With regard to Ethiopia’s success in attracting Foreign Direct Investment, one of the important factors cited by the New Times is Ethiopia’s low power tariffs. “The country’s electricity cost is one of the lowest rates in the world. This low power cost is a comparative advantage to the country and the individual investor to help keep the cost of production down.”

The Rwandan newspaper estimates that the completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in the coming few years, with its capacity of 6,450MW, will meaningfully change the current production capacity into 10500+MW. This will make the cost of electricity to remain lowest and/or probably to fall tremendously. This turns the prospect of the country to the positive direction creating credible power sustainability.

As the New Times said, the construction of GERD on the River Abbay will definitely boost Ethiopia’s power supply and hence its industrialization efforts. But beyond that GERD will benefit other countries as well.

It is true that Ethiopia needs to maximize its electric power supply in order to meet its vision of becoming a middle-income economy through the implementation of its industrialization development strategy. And more importantly, the construction of GERD on the River Abbay is part of Ethiopia`s exercise of its sovereign right. Ethiopia has an absolute right of utilizing its natural resources within its sovereign jurisdiction.

Be that as it may, Ethiopia`s policy on the utilization of trans-boundary water courses is based on a principle which rests on equity and fairness, due respect to settled international law and norms. Ethiopia`s ongoing activities of the construction of the GERD is, therefore, based on its policy of utilizing the waters of the Nile equitably and reasonably in a way that benefits all and avoids significant harm to other riparian countries.

In view of this, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will become nothing but a catalyst for future cooperation developments in the Nile Basin region. GERD is a milestone in the Eastern Nile landscape, and from several perspectives not only in hydro political terms, but also in terms of regime change over the management of the shared water resources, the dynamics of water utilization and management, economics and incentives for regional economic integration approaches, and more generalized awareness that water cooperation is more essential than ever.

GERD can be taken as a concrete case for upstream-downstream cooperation for equitable and reasonable utilization of the shared water resources and as a means of sustainable benefit sharing among the Eastern Nile Basin countries.

Ethiopia believes in cooperation and mutual benefit. The hydro electric energy generated doesn’t only benefit is to achieve its goals but also it would be available to neighboring states to support their development and economic integration results in peace and stability of the region. This mega project will allow Ethiopia to provide electric power to neighboring and riparian states with a reasonable price, besides it will generate foreign currency to the state that will result in harmonizing relationship with neighbors.

The fact that Grand Renaissance Dam is constructed only to generate hydro electric power is another point worth noting. The river would continue to flow in its normal course after it generates power. Ethiopia has no any intention for reducing the volume of water that is flowing to the downstream countries, namely Sudan and Egypt that has been unfairly receiving the lion share of the waters.

For the time being, as agreements take their own course, the dam will use the water for producing electric power without retaining it. That means, the lower stream countries can continue using the river for agricultural or power generation activities as ever without having reduction of its volume. The dam would rather enable the lower riparian states to have constant water in summer and winter to solve both water shortage and flooding that are seasonal problems to them.

Apart from such a big advantage, the Grand Renaissance Dam will bring the downstream countries a number of other benefits as well. Through the dam, there will be reduction of siltation and flood that have been ravaging the residents of the downstream countries for thousands of years. Dams in Sudan and Egypt have been adversely affected by it and the countries incurred a lot of cost to rectify the damages.

The reduction of evaporation as a result of the depth of the dam, steady flow of the river as a result of the conservation work and the actual construction of the dam helps the downstream states to cope up with the fluctuations of water flow that has been causing problems in conducting various productive activities on the river.

It is also very important to notice that Ethiopia, in all parts of the country, has been undertaking a lot of massive activities in soil and water conservation, rehabilitation, forestation and reforestation. Those activities which will be continued in the future would ultimately change and in turn result in enriching the tributaries of Nile with water and increase water table. It also helps in avoiding siltation and flooding to the lower riparian states. So, volume of water will increase in the future rather than decreasing.

All in all, it has always been Ethiopia`s firm stand that trans- boundary water courses are means for cooperation than a source of contention and conflict. As Ethiopia is constructing the GERD on the Blue Nile which occupies about 85% of the Nile water, it can be regarded as a game changer in shaping and enhancing Ethiopia’s relations with riparian countries downstream.

The Ethiopian Herald September 17, 2019

 BY YONAS A.

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