Michele Dunne has prepared a short video on the dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt over Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Addis Ababa has just completed the dam and is now ready to fill it. In October 2017, Dunne and Katherine Pollock had written in Diwan about what was at stake. In November 2019, Andrew Miller examined whether the United States might intervene to help resolve the disagreement, pointing out how different timeframes to fill the dam could affect water supplies in Egypt, and therefore stability in that water-dependent country.
Comments(3)
It is true that climate change is critical, that is what Ethiopia is doing: -Building dam to generate hydro-electricity -Planting trees, to protect nile basin and the world -Proposing equitable share of own resource, our ABAY, Blue nile -Building GERD, by every single citizens contribution. Ethiopia must be listen what trying to say and show in practice, instead of calling internationlization of Egyptiaan propganda- the country do nothing NOTHING, but need EVERYTHING. The world must know that ABAY is the center of our identity, WE sing, WE dream and WE fought for ABAY!!
The Egyptians must understand that circumstances have changed and hence Egypt cannot continue having 55.5 billion cubic meters of the Nile waters. Scientists have proven Egypt actually uses more than this official figure. Be that as it may, the GERD is a non-consumptive hydroelectric project with minimal impact on down stream countries in the eyes of dispassionate technical observers. As such it is the tip of the iceberg. The nine upper riparian Nile basin countries have planned dams waiting their construction time and resources. For this reason, the Egyptians must understand that the time for talking about the colonial era treaty that allocated 100% of the Nile waters to only lower riparian countries of Egypt and the Sudan is long overdue. The GERD is here to exist and it is only the first to be built. The Egyptians had over 2000 years to come up with internal solutions within theIr political and geographical boundaries. They failed to do so to this day. They spent their time idly waiting for an inevitable water scarcity problem to happen. Worse, they still believe they were right to have been doing what they have been doing for so long and would like to continue doing so . They are not aware how things have changed yet. It is time to develop their underground water resources which are estimated to sustain their demand for 1000 years. At the time of writing this comment, the latest negotiation sponsored by the African Union (AU) failed to bear fruit allegedly because the Egyptians demanded Ethiopia to sign an agreement that would give Egypt the veto power on future projects on the Nile river.
This was a perfect short intro to this problem. Thank you.
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