disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam

disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam

The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. Since then, there has been a constant stream of complaints regarding the social and environmental impacts on downriver areas, including large displacements of local populations. There are three key articles. Omar, A. Ethiopia, whose highlands supply more than 85 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River, has long argued that it has the right to utilize its natural resources to address widespread poverty and improve the living standards of its people. for seepage and evaporation, but afforded no water to Ethiopia or other upstream riparian statesthe sources of most of the water that flows into the Nile. The three countries have agreed that when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. It concludes that Ethiopias legal position is far stronger and that a negotiated agreement in its favour is the most likely outcome of the dispute. Article 7 provides that watercourse states must take all appropriate measures to prevent significant harm to other watercourse States and that, where harm does occur, there shall be consultations to discuss the question of compensation. Finally, Article 8 requires that watercourse states cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith.. Nevertheless, it is important to take stock of the human costs, social problems, and lasting environmental impacts of this strategy which have already drawn considerable criticism and concern. It has also expressed concerns about the potential impact the initial filling of the dam will have on areas downstream. A general view of the Blue Nile river as it passes through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba in Ethiopia, on December 26, 2019. Such a meaningful resource-sharing agreement should not only resolve the conflict over water-use rights among the riparian states, but it should help define concepts such as equitable and reasonable use and significant harm, which have been used by the downstream states in their criticisms of the GERD. 2011. how much does the reservoir contain? However, by far the largest of these projects is the GERD, which was announced in 2010 and work on which was launched in 2011 by means of a nationwide fundraiser in which Ethiopian civil servants were reportedly obliged to volunteer a months salary to invest in GERD bonds. Egypt wants control and guarantees for its share of Nile waters. Consequently, it suits Egypts interests in this context to argue that the DoP is binding, that it precludes any net loss of flow and therefore that the use of the Dam for irrigation purposes is prohibited. Egypt, which lies 1,600 miles downstream of the Dam, believes its operation will reduce the amount of fresh water available to it from the Nile. [35] Egyptian players abroad: Mostafa Mohamed's Nantes defeated at PSG, Trezeguet.. Italy Serie A results & fixtures (25th matchday), Egypts Prosecution investigates Hoggpool, Six European nations express concern over growing violence in Palestinian territories, Egyptian Premier League fixtures (21st matchday), US official says Biden expected to tighten rules on US investment in China. A major reason the GERD is so controversial today is that it has not been subjected to thorough safety and impact studies, which could pose a grave threat to downriver nations. Egypt relies on the river for as much as 90 percent of its freshwater and sees the new dam as an existential . As early as 1957, Ethiopian officials said that the Somalian economy could not survive on its own given how heavily dependent it was on Ethiopia. The three fillings hitherto, with the most recent in August 2022, imposed no discernible harm on downstream states. Today, however, Ethiopia is building the Grand Renaissance Dam and, with it, Ethiopia will physically control the Blue Nile Gorgethe primary source of most of the Nile waters. The Chinese then took over the funding amidst heightened international concern regarding the social, technical, and environmental repercussions of the Ethiopian dams. It's free to sign up and bid on jobs. The former was initially funded by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, but these later withdrew for legal and other reasons. Another argument Egypt might adduce concerns the DoP. Already, the United States has threatened to withhold development aid to Ethiopia if the conflict is not resolved and an agreement reached. But the project has caused concern. Feb 11th 2021 DAMS HAVE several uses. This includes Sudan, another downstream nation that one might assume would oppose its construction. The Nile-COM is the highest political and decisionmaking body of the NBI. It also codified the principles of equitable and reasonable utilisation and no significant harm (essentially importing from the Watercourses Convention). Turning then to Ethiopia. The dam will flood 1,680 square kilometers of forest in northwest Ethiopia (an area about four times the size of Cairo), displace approximately 20,000 people in Ethiopia, and create a reservoir that will hold around 70 billion cubic . No water at all was allocated to Ethiopia. Faced with the anachronistic Nile Waters Treaties on the one hand and the absence of a suitable replacement on the other, discussions about the Dam have fallen into something of a stalemate. At the same. Note that, under Article 62(2) VCLT, territorial treaties are excepted from the change in circumstances rule. These discussions highlighted benefits such as more consistent water flow, minimising the risks of flood and drought, and the potential for discounted hydroelectricity produced by the Dam. As a hydroelectric project, the dam is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity. On March 4, 1909, the Copyright Act of 1909 became law, making infringement of a copyright a federal crime for the first time. The Nile riparians must understand that the river is a common resource whose effective management must be approached from a basin-wide perspective. Flashcards. The establishment of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, up 145 and a storage capacity of 74 . Salman, S.M.A. The significance of Gulf involvement was highlighted by the . A political requirement will be to agree on rules for filling the GERD reservoir and on operating rules for the GERD, especially during periods of drought. If the relevant parties can agree to these goals, the agreement, in the end, will need to include technical language that ensures equitable sharing of the Nile. It can be demand-driven, typically caused by population growth, and supply-driven, typically caused by decreasing amounts of fresh water often resulting from climate change or a result of societal factors such as poverty. when did construction of the dam begin? Nile Basins GERD dispute creates risks for Egypt, Sudan, and beyond. The Washington Quarterly, 37(2), 25-37. Kandeel, A. GIGA Focus No. Egypt's 100 million people rely on the Nile for 90% of the country's water needs. In the modern era, the US used water to blackmail Egypt. Churning waters: Strategic shifts in the Nile basin. The treaties also purported to give Egypt veto power over upstream projects. Construction on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam began in 2011 and it is currently nearing completion. Given the advancement of the dam construction - the GERD being, as of March 2015, 40% complete, according to Ethiopia - Egypt had good reason to reconsider its position (RANE, 2015). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a 6000 MW hydropower project on the Blue Nile, which the Ethiopian government plans to build to fulfill the country's energy needs. The CFA was a political success for the eight upstream states such as Ethiopia as it favoured those states and isolated the downstream states of Egypt and Sudan and made them appear recalcitrant. This paper discusses the challenges and benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is under construction and expected to be operational on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia in a few years. This antipathy is not new, with Munzinger noting even in the nineteenth century that Ethiopia is a danger for Egypt [which] must either take over Ethiopia and Islamize it or, retain it in anarchy and misery. Still, the Dam brings the old enmity into sharp focus. Sudan and Egypt, which rely most heavily on the . The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will have negative impacts not only on Egypt but also on poor communities in Ethiopia as well as on its Nile Basin neighbours Ethiopia's strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). RANE (2015). The Dam is being built by Ethiopia on the Nile River and is fiercely opposed by Egypt. Although talks chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa on behalf of the African Union have resolved many issues associated with the filling of the GERDs reservoir, there is still no agreement on the role that the dam will play in mitigating droughts. l It is in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 15 km east of the border with Sudan. In: Yihdego, Z. et al. Indeed, Egypt has called the filling of the dam an existential threat, as it fears the dam will negatively impact the countrys water supplies. To African commentators in recent decades, massive investments in mega-energy and irrigation projects were emblematic of the African economic emergence, and Ethiopia at that time vaunted itself as one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. Ethiopia and Sudan are currently developing and implementing water infrastructure developments unilaterally - as Egypt has done in the past and continues to do. What could have been strictly technical negotiations have turned into a political deadlock. For more on the background and history of these important relationships, see my book with former AGI Director Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Governing the Nile River Basin: The Search for a New Legal Regime., not be filled without a legally binding agreement, when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. One senior advisor to former Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi alluded to it when he said that Ethiopia will supply the electricity, Sudan the food, and Egypt the money. To which we might add, and South Sudan will supply the oil.. Concern has focused in particular on Lake Turkana, which derives 90 per cent of its water from the Omo River on which the Gilgel Gibe III Dam was built. Ethiopia seems to have the legal upper hand in this dispute. It's free to sign up and bid on jobs. The Gerd is expected to generate over 5,000 megawatts of electricity, doubling the nation's . Hydrological Sciences Journal, 56(4), 687-702. We shall begin with the former. The filling regime and operational methods of GERD will affect Egypt, in particular through its impact on the operation of its Aswan High Dam (AHD) which aims at mitigating the high variability of the Nile River flow. The official narrative is that Ethiopia can uproot poverty and bring about a definitive end to social and economic underdevelopment by means of the construction of a series of mega-dams combined with the development of the national energy infrastructure. India dispatch: Supreme Court limits DNA paternity testing in divorce proceedings, prioritizing childrens privacy rights, US dispatch: Texas case could limit access to abortion medication, Copyright infringement made federal crime. Because the strategy of land allocation and dam construction relied on senior executive decisions and foreign funding from China, above all, the government was largely freed of pressures of transparency and accountability. While the water will return to its normal state before reaching Egypt, the damage to these populations will be permanent. The 1902 Treaty did not preclude Ethiopia from undertaking works that might reduce, but not arrest, the flow of waters. It provides clear benefits to all three riparian, such as flood control, reduced flood damages and sediment control. Although Egypt has persistently argued that the 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan is the legal framework for the allocation of the waters of the Nile, Ethiopia and other upstream riparian states reject that argument. The $4 billion hydroelectric dam . This dam, set to be the largest in Africa in terms of power capacity, continues to cause disagreement between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on filling and operation strategies. An optimistic trend among todays African commentators focuses primarily on economic growth rates and pays little attention to human tolls, questions of transparency and accountability, and the sustainability of growth. The colonial powers have departed and so to continue to enforce treaties agreed based around their interests would be irrational. grand ethiopian renaissance dam. After all, the VCLT allows states to withdraw from or terminate a treaty owing to a fundamental change of circumstances which has occurred and which was not foreseen by the parties (Article 62(1)). Helping Egypts cause, during the preparation of the VCSS, the International Law Commission stated that treaties concerning water rights or navigation on rivers are commonly regarded as candidates for inclusion in the category of territorial treaties. However, it must be noted that this would represent a generous interpretation of the territorial treaty exception. Egypt had asked the UNSC to push the three countries to adhere to their obligations in accordance with the rules of international law in order to reach a fair and balanced solution to the issue of the GERD. Egypts repeated references to the rules of international law is part of an effort to maintain its so-called natural and historical rights that were established and reaffirmed by the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement between Egypt and Sudan, respectivelytreaties many of the other involved parties reject as anachronistic and untenable. Match. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. to hydrate farmland), it would effectively be taken from downstream states like Egypt. In June 2020, tensions escalated when Ethiopia declared its intent to fill the dam in July without an agreement, which again led to Egypt and Sudan requesting UNSC intervention on the matter (Kandeel, 2020). Typically, treaties contain provisions on the identification and function of the depositary, entry into force, adoption and so on (Article 24(4) Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT)). The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. The final touches to these plans were added in 2005 and 2007, and one involves nine hydroelectric dams along the Gebale Dawa to produce some 1,300 MW of electricity for export. Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Nile's water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. The dispute over the GERD is part of a long-standing feud between Egypt and Sudanthe downstream stateson the one hand, and Ethiopia and the upstream riparians on the other over access to the Niles waters, which are considered a lifeline for millions of people living in Egypt and Sudan. In the relatively unlikely scenario that the above points failed, Ethiopia could argue that there has been such a change of circumstances since the Nile Waters Treaties were concluded that they ought to be terminated. In 2019, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee warned that the Gibe III Dam had already disrupted the seasonal patterns of Lake Turkana and that this would reduce fish life and harm local communities dependent on the Lake. The Nile is not a boundary-delimiting river, hence Ethiopia would almost certainly argue that the exception should not be applied here. Egypt has also escalated its call to the international community to get involved. Ethiopias strategy for dam construction goes far beyond developmental goals. However, the Convention took almost twenty years to enter into force (from 1997 to 2014) due to the lack of necessary ratifications by states. Ethiopia Needs the United States to Act as an Honest Broker in the Nile . Disadvantages Slow process Could be washed to the wrong direction Start up costs Lesson 4: Long term investment, It can't cope with he propagation rate of water hyacinth. Maguid, M.A. Although Khartoum initially opposed the construction of the GERD, it has since warmed up to it, citing its potential to improve prospects for domestic development. One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? The Danger of Multi-Party Democracy and Free Elections in Plural Societies Recognizing the Muslim Brotherhood as a Legitimate Player in Egyptian Politics was a Big Mistake Ethiopian Partnering with ASKY to Establish West African Cargo Hub Ethiopia and China's ZTE singed $800 million mobile deal H and M to build factories in Ethiopia The Ethiopian government has always availed itself of its power to transfer local populations off land it decides to declare a public resource. According to some estimates, the Ethiopian government had to arrange for the resettlement of 1.5 million people in the four regions of Gambela, Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz. The researchers looked at the dynamic interactions between the Nile's hydrology and infrastructure and Egypt's economy. These two factors could become serious problems. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a critical project that intends to provide hydroelectricity to support the livelihoods of millions of people in the region. The toll on the local communities affected by the dams has been enormous. 67K views 6 months ago ETIOPIA The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the Blue Nile, is located around 14 km upstream of the Ethiopian-Sudan Border, at around 700 km from the Capital. The Tendaho, Tekeze, and the Gibe series are only a few examples from that period. per year, that would constitute a drought, to push the three countries to adhere to their obligations in accordance with the rules of international law in order to reach a fair and balanced solution to the issue of the GERD, 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement. Created by. Egypt has issued a public statement to that effect. This agreement could pave the way for a more detailed cooperation framework, and represents a major step toward dispute resolution. Test. DISADVANTAGES OF ASWAN DAM the agriculture output of Egypt. These hydraulic mega-projects underscore the ambitious local and regional political aims of the Ethiopian ruling elites. For example, in 2017, the UNSC highlighted the security risks of water stress in the Lake Chad Basin Region, affecting Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, based on a combination of water scarcity, drought, desertification and land degradation. In contrast, if water from the Dam were to be used for irrigation purposes by Ethiopia (i.e. In the absence of the application of the Watercourses Convention, various other legal arrangements and political declarations must be considered to gain an understanding of the regulation of the Dam and the Nile River more generally. The GERD and the Revival of the Egyptian-Sudanese Dispute over the Nile Waters. Despite the fact that newly independent Sudan in the late 1950s was literally forced by a dominant Egypt into a highly asymmetrical water-sharing arrangement, Sudan has rarely challenged this arrangement. According to Baradei, hydropower dams create immense turbulence in the water, where chemical reactions such as dissolved oxygen can destroy fauna and flora. Ultimately, however, Egypt did not sign the CFA (nor did Sudan) hence it does not resolve the dispute. 74 cubic metres. The Government of Egypt, a country which relies heavily on the waters of the Nile, has demanded that Ethiopia cease construction on the dam as a preconditions to negotiations, sought regional support for its position, and some political leaders have discussed methods to sabotage it. Egypts main argument might be that, despite being unsatisfactory and anachronistic, the Nile Waters Treaties remain good law and are enforceable against the respective parties. Al Jazeera (2020). It is perhaps the most glaring demonstration of environmental or climate injustice that the youngest continent (60 percent of the population is below the age of twenty-five) is also the one that has historically least contributed to the industrial emissions of greenhouse gases yet is likely the one that will be hardest affected by meteorological A Tripartite National Committee (TNC), consisting of national experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, was constituted in order to determine principles of cooperation. The 10-year filling time of GERD will likely contribute to fastened salinisation in Egypt. In particular, the DoP takes a very strict approach to the no significant harm rule. Although the immediate issue at stakesecuring a technical agreement on the filling of the GERDs reservoiris among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the broader and longer-term goal should be for all 11 statesincluding Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea, and South Sudanto agree on a legal regime for the management of this important watercourse. The current global energy crisis may help in this regard in the sense that Egyptians may find the allure of discounted hydroelectric energy stronger than ever before. The dispute resolution committee could be made up of the Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-COM), which includes the ministers in charge of water affairs in all member states of the Nile River Basin. Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan have expressed concerns over the impacts of the dam on their water supply. Across Ethiopia, poor farmers and rich business executives alike . More alarmingly, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak allegedly even considered bombing the Dam. It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. The failure of the latest talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has intensified tensions between Ethiopia and downstream states Egypt and Sudan. His research indicates that rapid filling of the reservoir could lead to severe economic losses, though he notes that expanding groundwater extraction, adjusting the operation of Egypt's Aswan High Dam, and cultivating crops that require less water could help offset some of the impact. What are the disadvantages of the Aswan Dam? Test. March 14, 2020, 6:57 AM. However, the DoP lacks these key traits, and these omissions suggest that it may simply be a non-binding declaration designed to ease political tensions and to illuminate a way forward. Attempts to resolve the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute over the past decade have reached a deadlock. In fact, the Dam arguably smooths out the flow and mitigates the risk of both drought and floods. In the imperialist age, Ethiopian emperors threatened to alter the course of the Nile and stop its flow to Egypt. Egypt says. The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. However, Sudans future water requirements will likely exceed its water quota as defined in the 1959 Agreement. Ethiopia should get its fair share of water that originates in Ethiopia. Nile negotiations break down as Egypt, Sudan accuse Ethiopia of rejecting legally binding agreement. Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Niles water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. In any event, the dispute remains. However, Ethiopia ultimately refused to sign the draft agreement. per year, that would constitute a drought and, according to Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia would have to release some of the water in the dams reservoir to deal with the drought. The instrument was a success in terms of cooling tensions between the states which seemed increasingly likely to come to blows. They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. However, another trend stresses the need to approach the question from a broader and more holistic perspective. It too has legal arguments it could adduce in support of its position that the Dam is permitted under international law. Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. Sima Aldardari. For example, Ethiopians and Egyptians are more likely to understand and appreciate the challenges that they face, particularly in the areas of water security, climate change, food production, and poverty alleviation, if they regularly interact with each other and engage in more bottom-up, participatory and inclusive approaches to the resolution of their conflicts. Another important area of cooperation is research, especially in areas like climate change, the fight against terrorism and extremism, and human rights. Ethiopia announced in April 2011 that it intends to build four large dams on the Nile, including one of the largest in the world, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (formerly known as Project X or the Grand Millennium Dam).This huge dam will flood 1,680 square kilometers of forest in northwest Ethiopia, near the Sudan border, and create a reservoir that is nearly twice as large as Lake Tana . The Chinese donors who have agreed to fund it have performed no independent social or environmental impact reviews. I agree with the delivery of the newsletter. However, this threatens the basin's long-term sustainability (as water use expands beyond what is environmentally feasible) and suboptimal in terms of capital allocation (as higher water use upstream may make downstream projects uneconomical (Swain, 2011). The writer is a professor of political science at the UAEs Zayed and Cairo universities, *A version of this article appears in print in the 9 July, 2020 edition ofAl-Ahram Weekly, Spain La Liga results & fixtures (24th matchday). l located on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia . For nearly a century, as a legacy of colonialism, Egypt enjoyed what Tekuya referred to as a hydro-hegemony over the Nile; despite Ethiopia contributing 86% to its waters. The Nile waters have historically been governed by the Nile Waters Treaties. These colonial-era agreements comprise (i) the 1902 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty (with the UK representing modern-day Sudan); (ii) the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty (with the UK representing modern-day Kenya and Uganda) and (iii) the 1959 Egypt-Sudan Treaty (with the UK now absent as a result of decolonisation). The largest permanent desert lake in the world, Turkana has three national parks that are now listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Ethiopia says it will take a further four to six years to fill up the reservoir to its maximum flood season capacity of 74bcm. It will be the largest hydropower project in Africa. Therefore, a negotiated position that favours Ethiopia is likely to be reached once it becomes politically palatable enough inside Egypt. Ethiopia, however, prefers to have the flexibility to make decisions on how to deal with droughts. Ethiopia could argue that those imperial powers did not foresee the decolonisation of Africa and that this represented a watershed event that profoundly changed the foundation on which the Nile Water Treaties were constructed. Such a mitigation program can make it much easier for Egyptian and Sudanese authorities to cooperate with Ethiopia and the other riparians in creating and adopting an agreement for management of the Nile. In terms of putative new law, namely the Watercourses Convention and the DoP, the key principles of equitable utilisation and no significant harm seem to leave ample room to accommodate the construction of a dam for hydroelectric generation purposes.

Non Denominational Churches In Goodyear, Az, Counted Cross Stitch Kits For Christmas, Crystal Tate Smith Husband, Playa Azul Luquillo Real Estate, Articles D