With water appreciating in value, in 1979, former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat claimed that the only reason for Egypt to go to war was over water. The following decade, former Egyptian UN Secretary warned that the wars to come would be over the waters of the Nile. It is becoming clear that water as a means to obtain national security is becoming a priority for many riparian states of the Nile. In this blog post, I will talk about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and the subsequent political relations Ethiopia has with the riparian states of the Nile.
The Nile passes through eleven riparian countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan,, Sudan, and finally Egypt before it empties out into the Mediterranean. Due to the Nile’s transboundary borders, many political issues brew and perhaps one of the most well known disputes on the river is between Egypt and Ethiopia.
When Ethiopia announced their intentions to build the GERD, the largest hydroelectric project in Africa, in 2010, this resulted in a massive backlash and increased tensions from the downstream drier state of Egypt, and negotiations are ongoing. For Egypt, the GERD remains one of the country’s most pressing issue regarding water security as it relies so heavily on the Nile for its water supply, but for Ethiopia, the dam is an effort for its electrification and development. Since 2011, Ethiopia has been building a dam in efforts to become the leading supplier of electricity in the region, however the construction of this dam means a 25% decrease in water flow to Egypt, which is detrimental to Egypt who relies on the Nile for 90% of its water supplies, making the river key to ensuring water security for the nation. Further to this, Egypt experiences annual water deficit levels of 7 billion cubic metres and is projected to be water scarce by 2025 in Falkenmark and Lindh's (1974) terms. In simple terms, Egypt needs the Nile to sustain life.
Historically, the Egyptians have intrinsically strong ties to the Nile which date back to 3000 BC, and the treaties signed in the19th century colonial era heavily favour Egypt, where it has given Egypt the power to essentially control the river through means of monitoring, reserving flow and rejecting projects that harm their national security. Although Egypt wants to keep these colonial treaties as the baseline for all negotiations, when the treaties were created by the colonial powers in the 19th century, it did not consider the needs of upstream states. Talks regarding the GERD remain unresolved, and Egypt has blamed Ethiopia for the impasse, however it is clear that the colonial treaties are at the core.
The unsettled tension between the two riparian states regarding the construction of the dam has become a serious cause for tension, and can potentially brew into a ‘water war’. In response to the construction of the GERD, Egyptian officials have considered military action, and is evidence of how much water has become a political issue.
This is a particularly current problem that shows no sign of cooling off especially with the disruption of regular precipitation events across the 11 riparian states dependent on the Nile. I am interested to know the current fluxes of the Nile throughout the year. Are there times when river flow is lower due to rainy or dry season modality, or is the river constantly being fed by the rains in East Africa?
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