Aswan High Dam: Dams Part II

There are actually two dams at Aswan, the Aswan Low Dam (ALD) and the Aswan High Dam (AHD), but generally when people talk about the Aswan Dam they are referring to the latter.

95% of Egypt’s population lives within the narrow strip along the Nile and there goes a saying that ‘Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile is Egypt’. Historically, the Egyptians have been taking advantage of the annual flooding as the Nile brings nutrients needed to fertilise the soil for irrigation. However, as the population grew, the flooding became a hazard and in response, the ALD was built in the late 1800s by the British whilst Egypt was under British colonial rule. The ALD was deemed inadequate in controlling the floods and in response, the AHD was constructed in 1968, where it was deemed as an ‘important hydro-political act’ that will essentially act as an agent for economic development. The flow of the Nile is increasingly becoming unnatural with the construction of hard engineering solutions, and the river now faces several implications.

The dam was originally to be funded by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the World Bank, but they backed out. As a result, the then Soviet Union ended up funding the project, which increased tensions in the ongoing Cold War, and sent a strong political message. In retaliation to the West backing out from funding, former President Nasser of Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal, which was an internationally owned water way important for trade as it provided an efficient shipping route for oil from the Middle East to Europe. This further increased global tensions, and added fuel to the Cold War.

After reading my previous post on the GERD, it is clear that Ethiopia is inherently using the same arguments that Egypt has to validate the construction for their dam, but Egypt sees the GERD as a threat to its national security and continues to enforce colonial treaties that gives them veto power. Egypt, although the last country for the Nile to pass has rights to 66% of the rivers flow and Sudan has 22%, and the rest is essentially lost to evaporation. However, most of the water for the Nile originates from Ethiopia, and there are many talks about whether these colonial treaties that give Egypt the ability to control the Nile should remain in place.

The political history for the Aswan Dam, both low and high is rich. The politics surrounding the dam have gone beyond borders, beyond the riparian states and beyond the continent, where it contributed to the Cold War - it is a reminder of how volatile the politics regarding securing the Nile water is.

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