When Egyptian technical experts arrived in Ethiopia on October 17 to begin talks with counterparts about the anticipated impact of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), they were faced with an unpleasant new fact. Members of the Nile Basin Initiative Council of Ministers—which Egypt is in the process of rejoining after boycotting the group since 2010—had just elected Ethiopian Water Minister Seleshe Bekele to replace his Ugandan counterpart as chair of the group for the next year.
In fact, 2018 is likely to bring to a head tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over water that have been building for almost a decade. As the GERD nears completion, Ethiopia starts preparations to fill the reservoir, and Sudan develops plans to use more of the river’s flow, the possibility of a water crisis in Egypt is coming into view. Not only would such a crisis add to Egypt’s significant domestic woes—a faltering economy, massive human right abuses, an unpopular president facing re-election—it even opens up the prospect of conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Egypt is one of the most water-poor and water-dependent countries in the world; the Nile supplies nearly all of its fresh water. Egypt’s dependency ratio—that part of the total renewable water resources originating outside the country’s borders—is 97 percent. Some 85 percent of the water that flows into Egypt originally falls as rain in the Ethiopian highlands. Yet as a water-poor country with a rapidly growing population of nearly 100 million, expected to cross the threshold of “absolute water scarcity” by 2030, Egypt has shown little awareness of this in its water-use practices. It uses some 86 percent of its water for agriculture, mostly in antiquated flood (as opposed to drip) irrigation methods, with large losses through evaporation.
Once the GERD, which will be the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa, is completed the Ethiopian government predicts a fill time of 5–6 years, while some Egyptians have argued that a slower fill time of up to 12–18 years is necessary to guarantee their water stability. One study conducted by the Geological Society of America predicts that, with a fill time of 5–7 years, the Nile’s fresh water flow to Egypt could be cut by a shocking 25 percent, slashing not only water available for consumption but also a third of the electricity generated by the Aswan High Dam.
The Egyptian government has not been blind to these impending challenges, although the political instability that the country has experienced since 2011 has almost certainly hindered Cairo’s diplomatic and developmental effectiveness. Successive Egyptian governments under deposed presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Morsi, as well as under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi today, have tried during some 15 rounds of diplomacy since 2010 to persuade Ethiopia to abide by a Colonial-era agreement that entitles Egypt to 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water annually and Sudan to 18.5 billion. Ethiopia and other upstream nations have consistently questioned the legitimacy of this agreement, to which they were not party and which does not address their water needs. Under the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi all signed a Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in 2010, which aims to “promote integrated management, sustainable development, and harmonious utilization of the water resources of the Basin.” Egypt and Sudan refused to sign the agreement, in part because it permitted upstream countries to build dams and store water. After the signing of the CFA, Egypt froze its membership in the NBI, as well as its technical projects on the Nile. One year later, Ethiopia broke ground on the GERD. Although Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan signed a cooperative agreement in 2015, it has not borne much fruit so far.
Egypt suffered a serious diplomatic setback recently when Sudan, the southern neighbor traditionally under Cairo’s sway, switched sides. Sudan has aligned itself with Ethiopia due to an assessment that the GERD could increase its agricultural potential (with the help of extensive investments from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are eager to enhance their food security), as well as its agreement to purchase electricity from Ethiopia. Egypt has turned to South Sudan as its next partner, with Sisi receiving the South Sudanese president in Cairo. Egypt has also supported the proposed Jonglei Canal Project, which would divert water from South Sudan to Egypt.
At the same time, Egypt has looked internationally for allies to help solve the GERD crisis. In August, for example, Egypt and Germany announced a cooperation agreement and addressed the Nile waters dispute. Germany has continued its €1.7 billion development cooperation with Egypt, focusing on water among several other issues.
But despite some donor attention to Egypt’s increasingly obvious water problem, so far it seems that development projects to improve water usage—the rational solution to this problem—are neither of a proper size nor sharply focused enough to deal with the possible loss of as much as one-quarter of the country’s renewable fresh water. There are wastewater and desalination projects, but most are designed to serve urban or industrial areas, in particular the mega-construction projects in which the Egyptian army specializes such as the new administrative capital to be built east of Cairo. These monuments in the desert not only are massively inefficient in terms of resources such as water, but they divert capital and attention from a more pressing need: updating agricultural practices to save water.
With a significant diminution in Nile flow looming for which Egypt is ill-prepared, there are unconfirmed but troubling reports of a possible resort to security pressure to achieve what diplomacy and development so far have failed to do. Rumors of an Egyptian military base in Eritrea as well as alleged Egyptian support for Ethiopian rebels point to an increasingly tense region. While Cairo has until now relied heavily on diplomacy, it might be preparing more extreme backup options to put pressure on Ethiopia and attract international attention should its efforts fail.
Comments(3)
Your writers would do well to NOT spread ridiculous rumors concerning an Egyptian military base on Eritrea's Nora Island in the Dahlak Archipelago especially considering the source, the Eritrean opposition whose track record regarding falacious posts is dismal ie the "death" of the Eritrean President etc. As for the estimates of the time it will take to fill the GERD, which at full enclosure of the Nile river water would take 2 years, the present Ethiopian plan is for a 5 year filling period. 5 years means that 40% of the Niles water will be taken, living Egypt, already suffering water shortages, in a desperate situation. How will Egypt survive something this drastic, 5 years of almost half of its water being taken, something it hasnt experienced in over 2000 years. Its time the world woke up and realized the potential disaster in the making, especially consdiering that the GERD will mainly supply foreign buyers of electricity because Ethiopia does not have the domestic infrastructure to even use the 6000MW the dam will produce. The question has to be asked, if Ethiopia is not able to use the electricity the dam will generate and that Egypt is ins such danger as a result why is the dam being built in the first place when smaller, less impactul dams will produce all the energy Ethiopia has the capacity to use for years to come.
Dear Mr. mountain, We can just check some of the basic facts: 1) Under any operational scenarios the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) will, as a first step, start to operate two turbines to generate Electricity. This means the mean annual flow of the River is sustained under any dam filling scenario--contrary to your implicit proposition of a possible complete flow cutoff over 5 years, (in case of 5 years filling operation), 2) The total yearly flow of the Nile River system (at the boarder between Sudan and Egypt) is conservatively 80 bln meter cube (there are reports of 100bln cubic meter or more), 3) The High Aswan Dam alone is designed to collect a total of three years Nile River system flow, 4) Due to the last two years heavy rain in the upper nile countries, all the cascaded dams in Egypt are full to their maximum capacity; this amount is (if you add Toshika artificial lake) close to four times the total flow of the Nile River--at the culmination point in upper Egypt. As we speak now, Egypt does have over 200 bln cubic meters of Nile water in its reservoirs, 5) Due to the fact under #4 if Ethiopia fills the GERD in TWO years, there can happen NO water shortage for Egypt's agriculture or Drinking need under any circumstances, 6) If the GERD is going to be filled in 5 years, this means one have to take approximately 15bn cubic meters of water a year from the River. Taking #1 and #4 above into account, this will create no water shortage problem for Egypt. Absolutely not. So why such a distorted representation of facts on the ground? PS: You are unbelievably becoming the lier of the CENTURY!--in the name of a freelance jounalist. Thanks
Does Blocking the lifeline of Egypt which is "one of the most water-poor water-dependent countries in the world," and whose 100 million people's very life dependend on water 85% of which comes from Ethiopia, have legal and moral grounds? As to the "rumors of Efyptian military base in Eritrea," it's just rumors planted by the government in Ethiopia through its proxies that have Eritrean faces. Concentrating on facts (Egyptians' life concern) is wiser than rumors.
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