When African Union-mediated negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over a Nile river dam broke again last month, it did not mark a new disagreement over the sharing of vital water resources.
Instead, it was a case of regional rivalries overcoming the understandings about science and cooperation that have been presented by African and Western mediators in various draft agreements.
Since then, the Egyptian media has been playing the drums of war, and a border dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia has exploded into violence.
At the center of the dispute is the Great Dam of the Ethiopian Renaissance (GERD), built by successive governments in Addis Ababa with the aim of lifting millions out of poverty.
The dam’s turbines, located near the source of the Blue Nile in northwestern Ethiopia, will generate 6,000 megawatts of hydroelectric power – critical in a country where more than half the population, about 50 million people, have no access to electricity, and the demand for energy is increasing 30% a year.
The solution to concerns over water security in Egypt and Sudan, observers say, is simple: coordination and data sharing.
However, even amid indications that the revival of traditional American diplomacy could help resolve the dam dispute, observers say that mediators must also face stronger currents than the Nile itself: nationalism, territorial disputes and a struggle for supremacy in the Horn of Africa.
Regional supremacy
For Ethiopia, the dam project promises to fuel the country’s rise as a geopolitical actor. Even in the midst of the struggle for the future of the country, which broke out last November in war in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, the dam remains a cause that unites the diverse nation.
“There has been a feeling of injustice between the government and, in general, the Ethiopian people, that, as a poor country, we have not been able to use a natural resource that springs from Ethiopia,” said Awol Allo, an Ethiopian analyst and conference speaker. Great Britain Keele University.
“This dam project signals the revival of the Ethiopian state after decades of shame, poverty and hunger with which it has been identified.”
A sense of personal investment and national unity around the dam solidified after the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other creditors refused to finance the GERD. In 2010, Ethiopia decided to go it alone, paying for it with government funds and bonds purchased by private citizens, and started the project in 2011.
“Every Ethiopian sees himself as an interested party in a project that is not just about energy needs, but a declaration that Ethiopia is a significant and powerful country that can go it alone and assert itself on the regional scene,” said Allo.
Downstream drama
Despite draft agreements, water-sharing disputes between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have only deepened since the construction of the GERD was completed in 2020 and Addis Ababa started filling reservoirs in July.
Downstream countries, long accustomed to the unrestricted flow of the Nile to their agriculture and drinking water, are alarmed by the potential impact of the dam on their water and food security.
Egypt, 1,600 kilometers downstream from the dam, has claimed the lion’s share of the Nile water and sees GERD as a threat to national security. Egypt currently depends on the Nile for 90% of its fresh water and the vast majority of irrigation water for plantations to feed its 105 million citizens. It is also concerned about possible floods and droughts.
Egypt and Sudan regret the lack of technical studies and assessments of the environmental and social impact of the downstream dam.
Tensions are now high, as Addis Ababa is expected to fill the dam’s reservoir with an additional 11 billion cubic meters this year after the initial 4.9 BCM it filled in July 2020. The dam has a total capacity of 74 BCM. “The biggest problem is not knowing how Ethiopia intends to use and operate the dam, at what times of the year, in what quantities and what will be the impact,” said Amal Kandeel, environmental and political consultant and former director of Climate Change, Program Middle East Institute for Safety and Environment. “Downstream countries cannot plan without knowing; they need clarity.
“Egypt will not benefit from the dam,” she says. “But if there is coordination, facts, evidence and data shared transparently, at the very least, any potential damage will be reduced.”
For Egypt, a “humiliation”
Egypt’s inability to interrupt or influence the project has become a symbol of the government’s internal focus over the past decade and its withdrawal from the Arab and African scene, which domestic critics say has drastically reduced Egypt’s geopolitical importance.
Egyptian private sources say the prospect of Ethiopian control over food and water security in the most populous Arab country is seen as “a humiliation”, boosting Cairo’s hard line.
“For 50 or 60 years, Egypt was the biggest geopolitical player, not only in the Middle East, but also in the northeast of the Horn of Africa,” says Horn of Africa analyst Rashid Abdi.
“Times have changed, we have new governments that are becoming more assertive on the regional and global stage and acting independently,” he says. “It is a natural progression that Egypt is finding uncomfortable.”
Egypt pressed for intervention by the United States, its Arab allies and the UN Security Council. In June, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned of the conflict if the United Nations does not intervene.
After the failure of the negotiations last month, the Egyptian media influenced by the state called for the use of “force” against Ethiopia, defending surgical attacks on the electricity infrastructure of the GERD.
For Sudan, it’s good, but ….
Meanwhile, regional alliances and a century-old border dispute have turned northwestern Ethiopia’s neighbor from a silent defender of the dam into a spoiler.
Observers and experts agree: the benefits of GERD for Sudan are many.
The dam, 20 miles from the border between Sudan and Ethiopia, will reduce the floods that devastated Sudan in the past. The flooding of the Blue Nile destroyed a third of the land cultivated in the country last year, destroying 100,000 homes and killing 100 people, aggravating Sudan’s economic crisis.
Reducing flooding and sharing irrigation water would help Sudan to cultivate more than 50 million hectares of arable land abandoned due to flooding and poor management, a critical boost for an agricultural sector that is Sudan’s largest employer and accounts for 30% of the country’s gross domestic products.
Ethiopia has also promised to export cheap electricity to Sudan.
“Honest people in Khartoum will tell you that the dam is a positive network from all logical, logistical and economic perspectives. Objectively, Sudan would benefit from the dam, ”says Jonas Horner, Sudan analyst and deputy director for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group.
“But it’s not that simple,” he says, pointing to Sudan’s need to balance regional alliances.
Khartoum – militarily close to Egypt, diplomatically indebted to Ethiopia and financially and politically dependent on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are allies of Egypt – is reluctant either to appear to support the dam, on the one hand, or to fall hard on Addis Ababa , for another.
This complicated balancing act was interrupted in December by the violent reignition of a century-old border dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia.
Sudanese patrols are under bombing, reportedly at the hands of Ethiopian militias, and the Sudanese army and federal forces in Ethiopia have clashed several times this month.
Ethiopian officials blame Cairo for fueling tensions, alleging an Egyptian conspiracy to prolong the conflict and make the GERD conclusion unfeasible.
Traditional American diplomacy
Observers agree that the dispute offers an opportunity for the Biden government to demonstrate its return to traditional American diplomacy.
The Trump administration’s few forays into the GERD dispute favored Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a Trump ally. Last July, the Trump administration partially suspended American assistance to Ethiopia after Addis Ababa rejected a draft agreement compiled by Washington that it considered favorable to Cairo. President Donald Trump has publicly warned that Cairo would “blow up that dam” if negotiations fail.
In contrast, President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, promised at his confirmation hearing last month to conduct an “active engagement” to deal with an increase in tensions that “has the potential to destabilize across the Horn of Africa. “, indicating that he is considering appointing a US special envoy to the Horn of Africa.
But observers warn that the Biden government must unravel the web of regional politics, nationalist fervor and power games to get the three states back to basics: water.
“The war in Tigray created instability in the Ethiopian state, and now you have the question of the border with Sudan, which is clearly linked to the issue of GERD. You have domestic actors in each of these countries lobbying external actors to promote your interests, ”says Mr. Allo.
“It will be difficult for any US government, with all the goodwill in the world, to fix things.”
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Originally published