Ethiopia inaugurates Africa’s biggest dam

Ethiopia inaugurated Africa’s largest hydroelectric project on Tuesday, September 9 that has promised to revolutionize the country’s energy sector but sparked diplomatic rows with downstream neighbor Egypt.

For Ethiopia, the Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a national project of historic scale and a rare unifying symbol in a country torn apart by ongoing internal conflicts.

Towering 145 meters (476 feet) high and stretching nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles) across the Blue Nile near the Sudanese border, the $4-billion megastructure is designed to hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity — more than double Ethiopia’s current capacity.

That makes it the largest dam by power capacity in Africa, though still outside the top 10 globally. Images on state media showed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed touring the site early Tuesday with Kenyan President William Ruto, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and African Union chief Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

The festivities began the night before with a dazzling display of lanterns, lasers and drones writing slogans like “geopolitical rise” and “a leap into the future”, watched by Abiy who has made the project a cornerstone of his rule.

Some 45 percent of Ethiopia’s 130 million people lack electricity, according to World Bank data, and frequent blackouts in Addis Ababa force businesses and households to rely on generators.

Analysts argue the GERD, under construction since 2011, could transform Ethiopia’s economy, boosting industrial production, enabling a shift towards electric vehicles and supplying power-hungry neighbors through regional interconnectors that stretch as far as Tanzania.

But neighboring Egypt, dependent on the Nile for 97 percent of its water, sees a looming disaster. With a population of 110 million and little rainfall, Egypt’s reliance on the river is absolute.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly called the dam an “existential threat” and vowed Egypt would take all measures under international law to defend its water security.

“Whoever thinks Egypt will turn a blind eye to its water rights is mistaken,” he told reporters last month.

The standoff has sharpened regional rivalries. Egypt has strengthened ties with Eritrea and Somalia — both of which have tense relations with Ethiopia — and coordinates closely with Sudan, which also worries about reduced flows.

Attempts at mediation by the United States, World Bank, Russia, the UAE and the African Union have all faltered over the past decade.

“For the Egyptian leadership, GERD is not just about water, it is about national security. A major drop in water supply threatens Egypt’s internal stability.

The stakes are economic, political and deeply social,” said Mohamed Mohey el-Deen, formerly part of Egypt’s team assessing GERD’s impact. The tensions have not been all bad for Ethiopia’s government.

“Ethiopia is located in a rough neighborhood and with growing domestic political fragility, the government seeks to use the dam and confrontation with neighbors as a unifying strategy,” said Alex Vines, of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

RFI