GERD is indeed a living symbol for fraternity, mutual cooperation in development among African countries and a tool for promoting peace in the Horn of Africa. This dam has nothing to do with politics is not a diplomatic bandwagon for any level of confrontation with Egypt and Sudan.
The current political nihilism that is being fanned on Ethiopia forgets the fact that these countries are here to live together as neighbors and it would be unfair to transmit a spirit of animosity to the current and future generation of the three countries.
Hence, Egypt and Sudan should work hard to promoting GERD as a vital instrument to promoting peace, cooperation and economic development as the project aims at providing benefits not only for Ethiopia but also to other countries in the region including Egypt and Sudan. In order to settle the ongoing dispute as early as possible.
Second, the potential for peace cannot be seen in isolation from the growing drivers for economic cooperation in the region, which will raise the bar to finding common interests and priorities. In particular, the centrality of Ethiopia to the region cannot be understated – in both physical and metaphorical terms.
Stability in the region is increasingly a primordial concern for Ethiopia, due to the danger of overspills into Ethiopia near Somalia and South Sudan, but also in relation to its investments in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), energy agreements and its expanding railway networks to overcome its landlocked status. Ethiopia has already begun supplying neighboring countries with energy from hydroelectric power, gaining the moniker the ‘water tower of East Africa’ (Bruce Byiers and Sophie Desmidt: 2016).
Finally, the author takes GERD as a conveyor belt of knowledge and technology transfer. What does this actually mean?
Third, technology transfer, also called transfer of technology, is the process of transferring technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform inventions and scientific outcomes into new products and services that benefit society.
It is worth noting that those who were directly involved in the process of building GERD over the last 12 years have gained two sets of advantages. The first is the fact that they are making history along the people and government of Ethiopia. Second, they have been gaining unfathomable level of practical knowledge that no university across the world can provide. On the other hand, they have continued to access the outputs of modern technology in hydro engineering. They are accumulating a huge amount of knowledge that can be readily be replicated to other similar projects in Ethiopia and the Africa region.
Along with the transfer of technology and knowledge, GERD is expected to be a learning spot for future hydrology and engineering students and researcher from universities in the country and from abroad. It will be a center for the exchange of knowledge and knowhow that fresh graduates will badly need. The will have the opportunity to blend their theoretical knowledge with practical and empirical knowledge.
Fourth, in terms of social services, the lake to be created by GERD will be an international center for rowing sports and competitions as well as surfing games introducing new forms of sports that will bring together all sportspersons across the world. This will help to promote peace not only among the sportspersons but also among the peoples of the world they will represent. It will be an excellent opportunity to lure thousands of tourists into the country each year. The establishment of other recreational facilities within ultra-modern hotels to be built on the sides of the lake and on the islands created on the lake will help the hospitality industry to make more investments in the sector.
This would mean that the dam will be one of the epicenters of national integrated eco-tourism projects the country is currently actively developing.
GERD will be a huge source of employment for the youth in Benishangul Gumuz and the rest of Ethiopia. As more investments are conducted in the area, unemployed youth will have ample opportunities to generate income instead of joining anti-peace forces in the region who are engaged in human and infrastructural destruction in the name of liberation fronts.
Fifth, GERD is expected to reduce political tensions among the countries of the Nile basin. This is important because stability and peace in the region is a major precondition for each country and the entire region at large. The dam will cause the prevalence of positively enforced locus of peace which will help to transform the status of peaceful diplomacy among the nations of the region. In a region ridden by the proliferation of terrorist organizations and multiple sets of conspiracies by the western powers, prevalence of peace is a question of the maintenance of the livelihood of the peoples of the region.
GERD would finally help to boost economic and cultural pan Africanism as it falls within the major strategies of Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063. It is one single sign for the promotion of the economic and political independence of Africa and would set an example for the rest of the less developed countries.
Ethiopia is also developing other hydroelectric power sources one of which is the Koisha Hydroelectric Dam in the southern part of the country.
BY SOLOMON DIBABA
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 4 OCTOBER 2023
