Striking a Dam Good Deal: Rising Tensions Between Ethiopia and its Downstream Neighbors
On September 9th, under a sea of Ethiopian flags and in the shadow of a concrete giant, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed officially inaugurated the Grant Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Standing nearly 500 feet tall and stretching over a mile across, GERD cinches the Blue Nile, a tributary of the greater Nile River. The $5 billion project will generate around 6 gigawatts of electricity: enough to both meet the country’s domestic demand by lighting the homes of around 60 million people who currently lack power access and create a surplus for export, assuming transmission infrastructure can keep pace.
With a reservoir the size of Greater London, GERD has become a symbol of unity and national pride for Ethiopia. However, it has deepened rifts with its downstream neighbors, particularly Egypt.
Egypt, a nation already strained by drought, views the structure as a threat to its water access during increasingly dry seasons. Cairo also contends that the dam counters a colonial era-ruling: in 1929, the British government (then ruling Sudan), granted Egypt the lion’s share of Nile waters and placed a block on upstream dams. This framework was later reinforced through a treaty between Egypt and independent Sudan. Ethiopia, however, was never a party to either treaty and has long rejected their legitimacy.
Construction began in 2011, launched under former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who unveiled the ambiguously-named “Project X” amid Egypt’s internal upheaval during the Arab Spring. In 2015, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan met in Khartoum to draft a Declaration of Principles on GERD. Instead of fostering cooperation, the agreement further entrenched mistrust. Ethiopia interpreted Egypt’s silence on its historic rights as a green light to proceed, while Egypt and Sudan accused Ethiopia of acting unilaterally without a legally binding agreement.
Ethiopian officials maintain that the dam will not cause significant harm to its downstream neighbors, citing independent studies showing no major disruptions since filing began in 2020 (aided, admittedly, by favorable rainfall). Egypt counters that even a 2% reduction in the flow of water could devastate over 200,000 acres of farmland. Egyptian geologist Dr. Abbas Mohamed Sharaky has warned of seismic risks from the massive reservoir situated along the active East African rift and suggested that Ethiopia could even use the dam to exert force over Sudan without “weapons or planes.”
Tensions could escalate dangerously if Egypt’s water supplies are at all compromised. Military action has been openly threatened, although any strike on the dam would devastate Sudan, which lies just downstream. Broader ripple effects are also possible: climate diplomacy experts have pointed to Egypt’s new military base in Somalia and Ethiopia’s controversial offer to recognize Somaliland in exchange for a coastline lease as another bubbling tension that could spill into a proxy conflict.
Negotiation is paramount, and luckily, that door is still ajar. Aspects of possible positive-sum solutions include Ethiopia selling surplus to Egypt and Sudan at favorable rates, expanding transmission capacity in the region, and highlighting benefits like sediment-entrapment that will reduce siltation at Lake Nasser. Ethiopia could also agree to release additional water flow during dry seasons and allow for more transparency, joint monitoring, and shared modeling of water resources. Mediation by the African Union or other neutral parties may help rebuild trust.
The dam is built, and now strong cooperative frameworks, allowing everyone to reap the benefits, must follow. Whether the GERD becomes a greater regional good or drowns the region in conflict remains to be seen.