Ethiopia’s mega hydropower dam project – the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been a center of controversy, cause for suspicion and regional dispute between downstream Egypt and the source of the Blue Nile, Ethiopia. Both of these powerful regional giants have been at loggerheads with each other over the controversial dam issue. Egypt claims the 4.6 billion dollars mega hydro dam as posing an existential threat to its water security while for Ethiopia it is a lifeline for its much-needed electrification and the resultant industrialization for economic development in its race against time to pull over 35million of its citizens out of extreme poverty.
Water and Energy Resources between Egypt and Ethiopia and Current Access Realities
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2007 NSAS project report, the world’s largest known fossil water aquifer system, the Nubian Sand Aquifer System, is located underground in the eastern end of the Sahara desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-eastern Africa. The Nubian Sand Aquifer System which covers a land area spanning just over two million km2, including north-western Sudan, north-eastern Chad, south-eastern Libya, and most of Egypt has an estimated groundwater reserve of 150,000 billion cubic meters (BCM).
Studies show that from thisEgypt’s share (over 63,200BCM) of the underground water reserve can sustain it for over 500 years without using any other water source, even with its current annual water usage average of around 110BCM. Furthermore, Egypt has access to infinite coastal waters (Red sea and the Mediterranean seas) which can harvest fresh water from indefinitely through modern desalination and reverse osmosis technologies either for drinking or irrigation purposes just like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries.
Despite Egypt’s claim of the Nile water being its sole source of fresh water, it enjoys an annual freshwater reserve of over 200BCM (from the Aswan High Dam reserve, rainfall, and extractions from its vast groundwater reserves). Ethiopia, on the other hand, has a groundwater reserve of only a little over 12.7BCM compared to Egypt’s over 63,200BCM; and a surface water reserve of no more than 30BCM compared to Egypt’s surface water reserve of 138BCM (See Gala, Tekleab. (2020/06/22). Exposing an Infinite Water Resources Advantage of Egypt over Ethiopia. 10.13140/RG.2.2.19256.16646.).
Ethiopia’s agriculture mostly depends on its erratic rainfall, resulting in frequent severe food shortages in some years when the rainfall is late or minimal. Ethiopia plans industrialization to be the main driver of its economy to get millions (over a fourth of its population) out of extreme poverty. As it stands now 60million Ethiopians live in darkness with no access to electricity with only 44% of Ethiopia’s population having access to electricity, while over 98% of the Egyptian population has access to electricity. Hence for Ethiopia to meet these critical development challenges the hydropower that will be generated by GERD is of paramount importance. That is exactly why the GERD is a lifeline for Ethiopia.
Given the fact that Egypt has the largest groundwater reserve anywhere in the world which is almost 5000 (five thousand) times that of Ethiopia, and a surface water reserve more than four times that of Ethiopia, added with the fact that it has infinite access to coastal waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean seas which it can harvest fresh water from by desalination and reverse osmosis technologies as is the case with other countries in the Middle East; its narrative of presenting Ethiopia’s GERD as an existential threat to its water security is nothing but a well-crafted deception strategy to mislead the international community.
Historical Injustices against Ethiopia’s Legitimate and Natural Rights to Use its Blue Nile waters for Development
Ethiopia is the source of the Blue Nile waters contributing around 86% of the Nile waters that flow downstream to Egypt. Yet, while Egypt developed its cities over the past 100 years by using the waters that flow to Egypt from its source in the Ethiopian highlands, Ethiopia, on the other hand, was unable to use its water resource to fend off repeated drought that haunts it almost every decade, thus costing it the lives of millions of Ethiopians decades over.
The colonial-era treaties between Egypt and Britain (1929) and again between Egypt and Sudan (1959) that shared the Nile water only between the two lower riparian states denied Ethiopia of its natural rights to undertake any development projects on its own Blue Nile water resource.
At the same time, though it gave veto power to Egypt over any development project on the Nile basin, that may reduce its “historical share” (as repeatedly claimed by Egypt, irrespective of how unrealistic and ridiculous it is in a 21st-century world reality) of the Nile waters. Ethiopia as an independent state was not a party to these treaties, both of which were enforced by Britain – the then colonial guardian of Egypt and Sudan and a world superpower at the time. However, Ethiopia has suffered the consequences of the injustices of these treaties against its Blue Nile water rights for its critical need for development.
Ethiopia’s economic development was thus impeded beyond calculable magnitudes as it wasn’t able to use its Blue Nile water resources because of these unjust colonialera impositions upon Ethiopia’s natural and legitimate rights to use its Blue Nile waters to lift millions of its people out of poverty. Though there is no study or economic impact modeling done on the economic and other multi-faceted impacts as a consequence of these colonial eras illegal and unjust impositions upon Ethiopia against its sovereign rights, it can be said that Ethiopia may have lost in hundreds of billions if not trillions of US dollars in lost economic growth over the past 100 years alone. As a consequence to generations of Ethiopians were fated to suffer in a dire state of poverty over the past century.
Ethiopia’s GERD Is an Opportunity for a Nile Basin Single Economic Belt
Ethiopia’s GERD in many ways is a source of cooperation and economic integration for shared basin-wide growth and development than a source of dispute and possible water conflict. This is so as Ethiopia will also be selling surplus electricity produced from the GERD to neighboring poor East African nations like Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia including Egypt itself for otherwise cheaper prices, which in turn can fuel their economies and create strong regional economic integration. All Nile riparian states nations can prosper together with the equitable and fair use of the Nile waters with integrated projects along the basin that take into account the maximum output of produces with minimum use of the Nile water resources. Such projects include the hydropower dam in Ethiopia, GERD, which has lower evaporation compared to the Aswan high dam, where only half of the water lost to evaporation at Aswan high dam will be lost due to evaporation at the GERD thereby preserving more water for downstream use. Furthermore, it comes as being of tremendous value in regulating the flow of the Nile which avoids massive disastrous flooding downstream.
Cheap electricity produced from the GERD project serves every riparian state while at the same time large farms can be cultivated downstream both in Sudan and Egypt by a more regulated flow of the river. On the other hand, by applying more efficient water use where less water-intensive farming is employed downstream and more waterintensive crop production is undertaken upstream, together as a single basin-wide economic belt, the Nile riparian states can secure their basin-wide collective food security ensuring sustained and sufficient access to food, thereby granting them control over the ever-increasing market food price inflations throughout the riparian states.
This presents a unique opportunity for attaining sustainable food security of the basin in a world of ever-increasing food shortage. On the other hand higher industrialization in upper riparian states from cheaper and sustainable energy production (electricity generated by the hydropower dams) will mean cheaper and easily accessible industrial outputs at affordable and reasonable market prices that all the people in the Nile basin can benefit as part of a single economic belt of the Nile basin.
It Is Better To Have Ethiopia as a Friend than a Foe
Ethiopia never had any intention to harm anyone in its history, and it has never tolerated anyone that wanted to launch an aggression on its territorial sovereignty or any of its national interest as a sovereign and independent nation that has never been colonized in its history of 3,000 years.
And no one that went to war with Ethiopia has ever lived to tell the story unless of course they were granted the customary Ethiopian welcome of an honorable guest. So war is not a solution as no one benefits from it. Egypt will benefit better from the Nile waters than it has till now if only it has the political will to work with Ethiopia and other upper riparian states in preserving the waters of the Nile together as a basin-wide unit. Ethiopia’s use of its Blue Nile waters is solely based on international principles on the use of transboundary waters, which are equitable and reasonable use, and no significant harm to other riparian states. Hence basin-wide cooperation in developing, protecting, and maintaining the Nile water is in the best interest of Egypt, Ethiopia, and any other of the rest of the basin countries which share the Nile waters.
The main underlying concern of Egyptians has been that ‘Ethiopia might arrest the Nile waters once it completes the construction and filling of the GERD’. Well, technically speaking Ethiopia cannot arrest the flow of
such a gigantic river as the Blue Nile and nor does Ethiopia have any intention of blocking its flow except to use it for the dire development needs to alleviate poverty. Once the Dam is filled in stages Egypt may only face a very small and short-lived effect of less water flowing to it.
However, Egypt in any given year boasts annual net water storage of well over 150BCM (from Aswan high dam, extraction from its groundwater reserve and water from rainfall). Hence Egypt can easily mitigate the impact of reduced Nile water flow by releasing some water from its Aswan high dam reservoir. Furthermore, once the Ethiopian GERD is filled with water in consecutive rainy seasons the Blue Nile water will only hit the turbines and continue its natural flow downstream to Sudan and Egypt. Hence Ethiopia’s building of a hydroelectric dam once again does not at all threaten the water security of Egypt.
Then why are Egyptian politicians escalating and internationalizing the issue of the Ethiopian dam (GERD) making it the epicenter of their country’s political landscape and the daily life conversation of every Egyptian? Anyone who is in his right mind can understand that making the issue of the Ethiopian dam an existential issue for Egyptians is a complete fabrication of a political narrative filled with lies only to gear the attention of hard-working Egyptians away from the internal repressive politics of Al-Sisi and his military band who control the entire political economy of Egypt from supermarkets to mega industries in the country. Thus it is only wise for Egyptians to wake up to the realities of foul play of their politicians against their brothers in Ethiopia just so that they can keep on gambling with the lives of ordinary Egyptians to prolong their political adventures.
Ed.’s note: Raphael Addisu is humanitarian assistance and international development specialist by profession working in the context of developing countries. He is an active social media blogger, who also writes commentaries and opinion pieces on socioeconomic and political as well as other diverse issues in the context of Ethiopia on different online media platforms. He can be reached at: raphaeladdisu@gmail.com
The Ethiopian herald June 27,2020
BY RAPHAEL ADDISU
