Expert Speak India with Africa
Published on Jul 02, 2020
The challenge for leaders is to strike the right balance between Ethiopia’s developmental needs while considering Egypt and Sudan’s water rights as well.
Water Wars: Could the dispute over GERD project push Egypt and Ethiopia closer to an armed conflict?

For quite some time now, Ethiopia and Egypt have been at loggerheads over the construction of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The GERD is a developmental project that is expected to propel Ethiopia’s economic growth and diversification, and is located on the Blue Nile, about 20-40 kilometres away from the Ethiopia-Sudan border. The cost of completion of the project is estimated to be $4.7 billion. Upon completion, it will be the biggest hydroelectric power plant in Africa, capable of generating up to 6,450 megawatts of electricity. All the electricity generated will be fed into the national power supply network which in turn is expected to spur Ethiopia’s economic development. However, the megastructure, sitting on the bank of river Nile, has become a source of tension with neighbouring Egypt.

Egypt is a desert state, that sits downstream and sources over 90 percent of its water supply from the river Nile for its households and irrigation for agriculture. Egypt is vulnerable to any changes in the water flow upstream. Historically, Cairo has had sole control over the usage of Nile due to two colonial era treaties — the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, and the 1959 Nile Water Agreement between Egypt and Sudan. However, in recent years, upstream countries have started challenging Egypt’s monopoly, thereby making the river Nile a regular source of conflict over water rights and distribution.

Egypt insists that the timeline be extended and fears that any rapid filling of the reservoir in upstream Ethiopia could cause a drastic reduction in water supplies downstream.

The most fundamental point of contention is the timeframe and the pace for filling up the 74 billion cubic metre reservoir behind the dam. With the construction of the dam is nearly complete, Addis Ababa is eager to begin the process of filling up the reservoir as early as July, during this year’s rainy season. Egypt insists that the timeline be extended and fears that any rapid filling of the reservoir in upstream Ethiopia could cause a drastic reduction in water supplies downstream. Due to the 1925 and 1959 agreements, Egypt and Sudan were allocated the bulk of the Nile’s waters at 55.5 and 18.5 billion cubic metres, respectively. These colonial-era agreements, however had failed to recognise and consider the rights of upstream countries, including Ethiopia.

What is the role of Sudan?

Diplomatically, Sudan is caught between Ethiopia and Egypt’s dispute over GERD project and is trying to mitigate the risk of conflict between its two major African and Arab partners. A full-blown conflict in the region is not in the best interest of Sudan. Sudan had benefitted from PM Abiy Ahmed’s mediation efforts in the Sudanese peace process and transition but the country is a political supporter and ally of Egypt. It also stands to benefit from the dam in many ways. Khartoum not only stands to gain cheap electricity from the GERD, the dam will also help remove silt and sedimentation, regulate steady water flow throughout the year and avoid unexpected flooding to downstream countries.

Stalled negotiations resume (yet) again

Negotiations between Cairo and Addis Ababa over the GERD have been rolling on unsuccessfully since the past nine years since the construction of the GERD began in 2011. The tripartite negotiations between Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia over operating the dam and filling the reservoir were stalled, after Ethiopia rejected the agreement achieved under the auspices of the USA in February this year. Ethiopia’s primary reservation centres around continuous tendency on Egypt’s part to recall and emphasise its so-called historical rights to the Nile water. Ethiopia or other Nile-sharing countries cannot be expected to enthusiastically uphold this. Egypt contends that Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the USA and World Bank led draft agreement was only a manipulating and time-wasting tactic under the pretext that Addis Ababa needed more time for consultations.

Ethiopia’s primary reservation centres around continuous tendency on Egypt’s part to recall and emphasise its so-called historical rights to the Nile water.

After exhausting all bilateral options, the countries in dispute, particularly Egypt, have sought assistance from external mediators — USA, World Bank and UN Security Council. All these external actors continue to encourage the three countries to work together and resolve the issue peacefully through continued negotiations. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres encouraged the countries to reach an amicable agreement in accordance with the spirit of the 2015 Declaration of Principles on GERD.

The African Union (AU) has taken stock of the situation and convened a virtual video conference between the leaders of Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan with the intent of brokering a deal to end this dispute over water supplies. Discussions succeeded in reaching an agreement which stressed that no unilateral measures, such as filling the dam, would take place until a final agreement is reached by all concerned countries. Following AU’s meeting, the three countries have now agreed to resume the GERD negotiations and expressed their desire to reach a fair and balanced agreement.

Now, the challenge for leaders is to strike the right balance between Ethiopia’s developmental needs while considering Egypt and Sudan’s water rights as well.

Going forward

Although for now Ethiopia and Egypt have agreed to sit in the negotiating table to resolve the technical issues relating to GERD project, the degree of success or failure of these negotiations will depend heavily on political and domestic considerations. Both the countries perceive the issue of Nile’s water as an issue of national security and as an existential issue.

Ultimately, the goal for both countries is to ensure the availability of necessities such as land for agricultural produce and access to clean water for their citizens.

For Egypt, if the dam is filled without any agreement in place, agricultural lands in Upper Egypt will decrease by 29.47% and millions of people will become water insecure. The concerns are equally just from the Ethiopian side as well, because the Blue Nile river on the Ethiopian side accounts for more than 70% of water resources and two-third of irrigation and hydropower potential whereas the rate of access to electricity in the country was only 45% in 2019. Ultimately, the goal for both countries is to ensure the availability of necessities such as land for agricultural produce and access to clean water for their citizens.

However, it is useful to point out that both Egypt and Ethiopia’s leaders are under severe pressure and are getting tested on the domestic front due to the fallouts of COVID-19. Tensions have been spiking in Egypt’s western neighbour Libya where Turkish-backed militants and militias have been intervening under the pretext of ensuring stability for the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. In response, President Abdel Fateh El-Sisi of Egypt has made it amply clear that “any action that threatens Libya’s security and stability is also a threat to Egypt.” In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was forced to suspend parliamentary elections scheduled in August by at least nine months due to the coronavirus outbreak. The vote was regarded by many as a litmus test for the reformist agenda of PM Abiy. Given the magnitude of domestic pressures on both fronts, we cannot discount the possibility of the two leaders attempting to tap into the nationalistic impulses. The GERD project has underlying political connotations as well. It is only one of the few issues that has been successful in uniting all Ethiopians across different ethnic groups and religious hierarchies along with the political class and citizens. For Egypt as well, the Nile represents one of the main resources for its development and no Egyptian government can afford to concede its rights to use the waters of river Nile.

Tensions have been spiking in Egypt’s western neighbour Libya, where Turkish-backed militants and militias have been intervening under the pretext of ensuring stability for the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

Even though people feel strongly about the issue, nationalistic impulses in both Egypt and Ethiopia must be tempered at all cost.

Both countries certainly recognise the grave consequences of an armed conflict and the absolute imperative to reach a consensus on the Nile dispute. There will not be any progress If all riparian countries continue to unilaterally maximise the benefits for themselves. There’s simply not enough water in the Nile to accommodate such myopic and narrow tendencies of countries. Therefore, all the countries need to come up with a Nile river basin-wide sustainable water use mechanism. The first order of business for Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan is to return to the trilateral negotiating table and work together until they are able to fully resolve any outstanding issues such as management of future droughts, resolution of future legal dispute, or about the legal status of a binding agreement.

The Nile dispute does not have to be a zero-sum competition. If countries can shed their political bias and reach a compromise on the filling of the GERD reservoir and annual water quotas, co-operative water sharing agreement in the Nile river basin can be developed.

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Contributor

Abhishek Mishra

Abhishek Mishra

Abhishek Mishra is an Associate Fellow with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (MP-IDSA). His research focuses on India and China’s engagement ...

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