Page 4 - AfrElec Week 37 2022

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec

GERD: Gulf states support Egypt

and Sudan after third filling

COMMENTARY The Gulf States support Egypt and Sudan in their third filling unilaterally.
dispute with Ethiopia over the Renaissance Dam “The reality is that the more advanced the pro-
on the River Nile. ject is, in terms of construction and filling, the
Ethiopia announced the completion of the less the likelihood of Ethiopia making moves to
third filling of the dam reservoir in August. satisfy demands from Cairo and Khartoum,” said
However, Egypt and Sudan are demanding that William Davison, a senior Ethiopia analyst at the
Ethiopia stop the filling until the three parties International Crisis Group, to The Africa Report.
agree on the operation mechanism. The filling took the amount of water that the
The dam is built on the main tributary of the hydropower dam holds up to 22 bcm, a third of
Nile and therefore raises tensions between the its overall 74 bcm capacity.
two downstream countries. GERD is located on the Blue Nile, which is a
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stated tributary that contributes more than 85% of the
that “water security for Egypt and Sudan is an Nile’s water passing through Sudan and Egypt,
integral part of Arab national security.” It also all the way north to the Mediterranean.
rejected “any action or measure that affects their Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed con-
rights in the Nile waters” and expressed “sup- siders the Blue Nile to be Ethiopia’s “gift” that
port for all endeavours that would contribute downstream countries share. His statement mir-
to resolving the file in a manner that takes into rors the country’s stance on managing the dam
account the interests of all parties.” without interference from other states.
Egypt is more likely to be affected by GERD, Dr Mohamed Mahmoud Mahran, Secretary
given that 97%, or 55.5 cubic metres, of its water General of the International Committee for the
is sourced from the Nile. Egypt’s annual per cap- Defence of Water Resources and member of the
ita share of water is around 550 cubic metres. American Society of International Law, stressed
Falling below 1,000 cubic metres per person in the need to maintain international pressure on
a country means a scarcity of water, according Ethiopia to reach a legal agreement over the
to the UN. dates for filling and operating the dam, under
“Egypt is facing an annual water deficit of the principles of international law.
around 7bn cubic metres, and the country could “There must be an agreement and co-ordi-
run out of water by 2025,” says a 2021 UNICEF nation. We need to know now the details of the
report. fourth filling stated for next year to determine
The three countries failed to find a compro- our agricultural policies and the operation of the
mise, as the negotiations held under the African High Dam” in Upper Egypt as well as Sudan,”
Union hit a brick wall in April 2021. Therefore said Abbas Sharaky, professor at the Cairo Uni-
Egypt resorted to the UN Security Council to versity’s Faculty of African Postgraduate Studies
demand pressure on Ethiopia through interna- Department of Natural Resources.
tional partners and reach a satisfactory agree- Sharaky adds that no harm would befall
ment for the three countries. downstream counties in certain phases of the
Ethiopia was unfazed by calls from down- dam filling. However, some complications may
stream countries for co-ordination in filling occur at other times, depending on droughts and
and operating the $5bn dam, and completed the the Blue Nile flows, for instance.™

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 37 15•September•2022