Ethiopia opens on Tuesday the largest on the continent, a gigantic engineering work, which has been a total cost of 4.8 billion dollars. This infrastructure is expected, known as the great dam of the Ethiopian Renaissance, supplies electricity throughout Africa. The hydroelectric dam, which has caused disputes with other African countries for the Nile flow, has taken 14 years to build and its building caused the death of thousands of people, according to Bloomberg citing the Minister of Energy and Water. The implementation of this project, which has a height of 145 meters and 1,874 square kilometers (greater than the entire city of London), has tensioned the relationship with Egypt and Sudan on it, the Nile.
Both governments argue that in order to implement this megapate, installed in one of the main tributaries of the river, he should have had the approval of both executives, adducing their “natural historical rights” based on two treaties signed between Cairo and London in 1929 and another between Sudan and Egypt in 1959. In a joint statement, both countries assure that the dam – under Benishangul-Gumuz, west of the country, already 15 kilometers from the border with Sudan-“represents a continuous threat to the stability of the situation in the Eastern Nile basin in accordance with international law.”
Ethiopian authorities reject these treaties and defend that this infrastructure is, and will allow satisfying the energy needs of its 135 million inhabitants by having a capacity of 5,150 megawatts, although it was initially projected for 6,000 MW. Adís Adeba also hopes to export electricity to countries around Kenya or Tanzania.
Since 2015 this conflict has been resolved, but negotiations did not fruit. The last round of conversations took place in December 2023, which, after its failure, Cairo said that “the right guaranteed by international agreements to defend their water and national security was reserved.”
The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, already assured in July in Parliament that it does not imply “threat, but a joint opportunity” that will generate “benefits” for all the countries around her surroundings. For their part, the Egyptian and Sudanese authorities say that “there are concerns related to the security of the dam, the uncontrolled spills of water and what to do in years of severe drought.”
This project has also become a powerful national support symbol for a country that November 2022 ended the one known as, a conflict that faced the Ethiopian government with the Liberation Front of the People of Tigray and left a total of 600,000 dead.
