Ethiopia announced on Saturday that it has started a second round of negotiations with Egypt and Sudan regarding a contentious mega-dam that Addis Abeba constructed on the Nile, the cause of long-standing hostilities between the three countries.
Cairo immediately rejected Ethiopia’s announcement that the Grand Renaissance Dam’s fourth and final filling had been completed, calling it illegal. Ethiopia claimed this month that the Grand Renaissance Dam’s fourth and final filling was complete.
Egypt and Sudan have repeatedly asked Addis Ababa to halt filling the enormous $4.2-billion dam until an agreement is reached because they are concerned that it will significantly restrict the amount of Nile water they receive.
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, and Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who had been at odds over the matter for years, agreed in July to work towards an agreement within four months before picking up the conversation again in August.
Ethiopia’s foreign ministry posted on X, formerly Twitter, “The second round of the tripartite negotiation among #Ethiopia, #Egypt, and #Sudan on the… annual operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (#GERD) has begun today, September 23, 2023, in Addis Ababa.”
Ethiopia is devoted to using the continuing trilateral process to come to a mutually agreeable resolution.
Since 2011, Ethiopia and its neighbours to the downstream have engaged in protracted talks over the dam, but no agreement has yet been reached.
Considering that 97% of Egypt’s water needs are met by the Nile, the dam has long been seen as an existential threat.
In February 2022, Addis Abeba declared that power has started to be produced for the first time at the dam, which is crucial to Ethiopia’s development aspirations.
More than 5,000 megawatts of power might be produced by the enormous hydroelectric dam, which is 1.8 km long and 145 metres high, when it is operating at full capacity.
The 120 million people who currently live in Ethiopia would have access to power at a rate that would be two times higher.
Sudan has had a changing standing in recent years while being embroiled in a civil conflict.
Egypt could “run out of water by 2025,” according to the UN, while portions of Sudan, where the Darfur crisis was essentially a fight over access to water, are becoming more and more susceptible to drought as a result of climate change.
