disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam

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. An unsubscribe function is also at the bottom of every newsletter. The treaties also purported to give Egypt veto power over upstream projects. Given the advancement of the dam construction - the GERD being, as of March 2015, 40% complete, according to Ethiopia - Egypt had good reason to reconsider its position (RANE, 2015). There are suggestions that Egyptian officials in the World Bank managed to precipitate a policy that funds would only be awarded for non-contentious water projects, thus precluding funding for the Dam. The Dam is used to generate electricity and went into partial operation in 2022. 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. This includes Sudan, another downstream nation that one might assume would oppose its construction. 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. It will be the largest hydropower project in Africa. Faced with the anachronistic Nile Waters Treaties on the one hand and the absence of a suitable replacement on the other, discussions about the Dam have fallen into something of a stalemate. Copyright 2023, JURIST Legal News & Research Services, Inc. Elliot Winter | New Castle University (UK), Egyptian Water Security and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Why Ethiopia has the Upper Hand, Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, history of copyright in the United States. One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and hydroelectric project is located 700 km northeast of the capital city Addis Abeba, in the Benishangul--Gumaz region of Ethiopia, along the Blue Nile River. These two factors could become serious problems. For example, Ethiopians and Egyptians are more likely to understand and appreciate the challenges that they face, particularly in the areas of water security, climate change, food production, and poverty alleviation, if they regularly interact with each other and engage in more bottom-up, participatory and inclusive approaches to the resolution of their conflicts. On the contrary, GERD has a positive impact in terms of reducing flood and silting and boost water conservation as well as generate energy for the region. Egypt, Ethiopia to form joint committee on Renaissance Dam. Indeed, Principle II notes that the purpose of the [Dam] is for power generation and regional integration through generation of sustainable and reliable clean energy supply. This is crucial given that hydroelectricity generation simply involves holding water back behind a dam for a period of time, and then releasing it again in a managed manner so that the electric turbines can spin consistently. Despite the intense disagreements, though, Ethiopia continues to move forward with the dam, arguing that the hydroelectric project will significantly improve livelihoods in the region more broadly. In 1964, the US Land Reclamation Bureau conducted a study for the Ethiopian government, identifying 33 hydraulic projects in the Blue Nile Basin. In short, the Nile Waters Treaties do little to constrain Ethiopias ability to construct the Dam. But with a generation capacity of 6.45GW, the Ethiopian government quoted the project as vital to the country's economic growth. (2020). Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has the second largest population in the continent. [35] The Washington Quarterly, 37(2), 25-37. 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. It signifies that Egypts de facto veto power on major upstream dams has been broken, and it clearly demonstrates the political will of Ethiopia to develop its water infrastructure even in the absence of a comprehensive basin agreement. l It is in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 15 km east of the border with Sudan. Hence, it is hard to see how Egypt could make a compelling argument that it has been harmed by the Dam. Turning then to Ethiopia. Test. Challenges for water sharing in the Nile basin: changing geo-politics and changing climate. The so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) is Africa's biggest hydroelectric project to date. However, as noted above, the trouble with relying on the DoP is that its legal status is not clearly defined. Maguid, M.A. Yet, Ethiopia is fully aware of Somalias economic dependence on the rivers originating from Ethiopias highlands. Match. The Dam is being built by Ethiopia on the Nile River and is fiercely opposed by Egypt. The instrument was a success in terms of cooling tensions between the states which seemed increasingly likely to come to blows. In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. 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. 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. Sima Aldardari. For nearly a century, as a legacy of colonialism, Egypt enjoyed what Tekuya referred to as a hydro-hegemony over the Nile; despite Ethiopia contributing 86% to its waters. 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. 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. DISADVANTAGES OF ASWAN DAM the agriculture output of Egypt. The Chinese-financed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), despite a recent breakdown in talks on Africa's largest development project, risks powering up a range of downstream tensions and rivalries. Helping Egypts cause, during the preparation of the VCSS, the International Law Commission stated that treaties concerning water rights or navigation on rivers are commonly regarded as candidates for inclusion in the category of territorial treaties. However, it must be noted that this would represent a generous interpretation of the territorial treaty exception. The significance of Gulf involvement was highlighted by the . 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. Gebreluel, G. (2014). The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. Neither the Egyptian nor the Ethiopian governments received positive domestic feedback on their agreement. [18] Given the importance of water to Ethiopian agriculture, it resulted in the tragic irony that, as Thurow put it, the land than feeds the Nile is unable to feed itself. The status quo started to change when Ethiopia began construction of the Dam, just east of its border with Sudan, in 2011. Still, if the exception was somehow activated, it would mean that Egypt remains entitled to 66% of the Nile River waters and that this figure should be used as the baseline for any future negotiations. 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. If Egyptian authorities refuse to abandon these anachronistic treatieswhich have created untenable water-use rights that benefit only itself and Sudanall parties will remain at an impasse. It will take between eight and ten years to fill the new dam. Elliot Winter is a lecturer (assistant professor) in international law at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. According to Baradei, hydropower dams create immense turbulence in the water, where chemical reactions such as dissolved oxygen can destroy fauna and flora. Egypt Forced to Negotiate on Nile Dam. Workers move iron girders from a crane at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba, Ethiopia, on Dec. 26, 2019. 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 Ethiopia's strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. It has led a diplomatic initiative to undermine support for the dam in the region; as well as in other countries supporting the project such as China and Italy. Flashcards. 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. It provides clear benefits to all three riparian, such as flood control, reduced flood damages and sediment control. July 26, 2022. The Nile-COM is the highest political and decisionmaking body of the NBI. Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. 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. Egypt says. Egypt has issued a public statement to that effect. We shall begin with the former. Ethiopia needs regional customers for its hydropower to ensure the economic feasibility of the GERD. casting the DoP as a treaty) has the potential to abrogate the Nile Waters Treaties that Egypt holds so dear. The Nile is not a boundary-delimiting river, hence Ethiopia would almost certainly argue that the exception should not be applied here. In fact, the Dam arguably smooths out the flow and mitigates the risk of both drought and floods. The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). At that point, the lake that . This is because it is traditionally understood to refer to waterways that form intrinsic parts of international boundaries. 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's free to sign up and bid on jobs. It also created a counter message to Egypts powerful the Nile is Egypt narrative that is familiar around the world. The filling time is estimated to take about 10 years, during which the Blue Nile water flows would be reduced. 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. Article IV of the DoP provides that the parties shall utilize their shared water resources in their respective territories in an equitable and reasonable manner and Article III provides that the parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm in utilizing the Blue/Main Nile. Ethiopia can make a strong case that the operation of the Dam complies with each principle. The drying up of this in Central Asia has been called the worlds worst environmental catastrophe. As a consequence, Ethiopia has not been able to make significant use of the rivers waters. per year, that would constitute a drought, to push the three countries to adhere to their obligations in accordance with the rules of international law in order to reach a fair and balanced solution to the issue of the GERD, 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement. 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. Omar, A. "Today as you see behind me . February 14, 2022 JPEG Under the Ethiopian constitution, the state is the proprietor of the countrys land and natural resources, which gives the government significant control over the allocation and use of land. 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. Egypt has also escalated its call to the international community to get involved. 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. 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). The three countries have agreed that when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. Cairo . Von Lossow, T. & Roll, S. (2015). Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Niles water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. when did construction of the dam begin? It merely provides at Article III that Ethiopia undertakes not to construct any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tsana, or the Sobat which would arrest the flow of their waters into the Nile. In other words, Ethiopia only agreed that it would not completely stop the flow of tributaries into the Nile. The US has revived diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute sparked by Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the Nile. Ethiopia, however, prefers to have the flexibility to make decisions on how to deal with droughts. Thus, it is only through cooperation that Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the other riparians can peacefully resolve conflicts over the Nile and achieve the type of water use that will contribute significantly to regional economic and human development. On Feb. 26, Ethiopia temporarily suspended its . The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. The researchers looked at the dynamic interactions between the Nile's hydrology and infrastructure and Egypt's economy. In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. Ethiopias interests in developing its water resources are driven by its growing population and high demand for socio-economic development (Gebreluel, 2014). On March 4, 1982, Bertha Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Perhaps the most obvious argument that Ethiopia may want to make is a rebuttal to Egypts continued reliance on the Nile Water Treaties. Chinese banks provided financing for the purchase of the turbines and electrical equipment for the hydroelectric plants. Whittington, D. et al. Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the Blue Nile dam, which Egypt fears will imperil its water supply. 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. Afraid that a drought might appear during the filling period, Egypt wants the filling to take place over a much longer period. An agreement between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is within reach, with the United Nations standing ready to support talks and the African Union-led process to settle remaining differences, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs told the Security Council in a 29 June videoconference meeting*. Government of the United States of America. The 10-year filling time of GERD will likely contribute to fastened salinisation in Egypt. 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 an intergovernmental partnership to provide a forum for consultation and coordination for the sustainable management and development of shared water. This article quantifies the major benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project for Sudan and Egypt based on GERDP technical design and quantitative analysis. The official narrative is that Ethiopia can uproot poverty and bring about a definitive end to social and economic underdevelopment by means of the construction of a series of mega-dams combined with the development of the national energy infrastructure. This dam, set to be the largest in Africa in terms of power capacity, continues to cause disagreement between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on filling and operation strategies. L'Europe en Formation, 365(3), 99-138. However, Ethiopia ultimately refused to sign the draft agreement. 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. At 6,000 MW, the dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed at 2017(IPoE, 2013). The dam will flood 1,680 square kilometers of forest in northwest Ethiopia (an area about four times the size of Cairo), displace approximately 20,000 people in Ethiopia, and create a reservoir that will hold around 70 billion cubic . The decisions that this group renders must be binding on all riparian states. Ethiopia's determination to build a major new dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), for hydropower purposes has been the flashpoint of current conflicts in the Eastern Nile Basin (Gebreluel, 2014). The Political Deadlock on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The Ethiopian government is spending $4.7 billion to construct the 1,780-meter dam across the Blue Nile. (eds.). Second, as also noted above, the Dam is to be used for electricity generation, not irrigation. Crucially, however, neither Egypt nor Ethiopia are parties to the Watercourses Convention and so they are not bound by its terms. The dispute has prompted numerous international interventions, including by Gulf Arab states, which have issued political statements and led mediation efforts. At stake, too, is . 2011. how much does the reservoir contain? The Nile riparians must understand that the river is a common resource whose effective management must be approached from a basin-wide perspective. Cooperation among the three countries has never been more important as demand for water rises, she added, due to factors such as population growth, urbanization and industrialization. They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. The 1902 Treaty did not preclude Ethiopia from undertaking works that might reduce, but not arrest, the flow of waters. However, Sudans future water requirements will likely exceed its water quota as defined in the 1959 Agreement. Even without taking the dam into account, the largely desert country is short of water. An optimistic trend among todays African commentators focuses primarily on economic growth rates and pays little attention to human tolls, questions of transparency and accountability, and the sustainability of growth. 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). 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). As a result, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has recognised water security as a possible threat to international peace. Since 2015, technical reports on the potential impacts of the dam have failed to reach a consensus within the TNC (Maguid, 2017). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will increase energy generation and development in Ethiopia, but it may have unwanted consequences for other Nile River users. Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Nile's water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. (2011). 4. In general, the Ethiopian development philosophy rests on two pillars: mega-dams and mega-agricultural projects. 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. Alaa al-Zawahiri, a member of the Egyptian National Panel of Experts studying the effects of the Renaissance Dam, believes as much. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 79-110. However, as a result of the ability and willingness of Ethiopians at home and abroad to invest in the dam project, the government was able to raise a significant portion of the money needed to start the construction of the GERD. The three fillings hitherto, with the most recent in August 2022, imposed no discernible harm on downstream states. Water scarcity is a growing problem. This crisis has raised great concerns among large sectors of the Egyptian society, especially in light of recalling such statements as "water war," "water militarization," "military management of the GERD crisis," "water terrorism," and "Ethiopian hydro-hegemony over the Nile Basin" [ 1, 2 ]. Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam: Ending Africa's Oldest Geopolitical Rivalry? March 14, 2020, 6:57 AM. This agreement could pave the way for a more detailed cooperation framework, and represents a major step toward dispute resolution. Such an understanding and appreciation of Egypts water vulnerability would help the riparians develop a water management protocol that can significantly enhance equitable and reasonable use while minimizing significant harm to downstream riparians. Zegabi East Africa News (2015). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 56(4), 687-702. Egypt and Ethiopia have once again locked horns over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. Still, Egypt may be playing with fire if it were to press the legal significance of the DoP. It can be demand-driven, typically caused by population growth, and supply-driven, typically caused by decreasing amounts of fresh water often resulting from climate change or a result of societal factors such as poverty. 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. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a 6,450 MW hydropower project nearing completion on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, located about 30 km upstream of the border with Sudan.

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