An article by Engidashet Bunare & Shiferaw Lulu dated May 19, 2020, carrying a title such as The Crocodile Tear of Egypt and The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) should be taken seriously for it is a point of view of an adjoining neighbour to one of the most prominent countries south of the MENA region. We all know that Egypt’s options were not that clear at the Nile talks some time ago. The first three sections are republished here for their obvious content.
I. Introduction
The media and Egyptian professionals are trying to influence with one sided view and deceive the international community. The purpose of the propaganda and lies that are taking place internationally by the Egyptian politicians and professionals is to mislead the international community and countries about the GERD for getting biased support and to pressurize Ethiopia to sign an agreement that only satisfies Egypt’s interest at the expense of over 100 million people of Ethiopia. In addition Egypt is trying to use the GERD issue to shadow and divert political and diplomatic efforts from the CFA (Cooperative Framework Agreement) that requests reasonable and equitable share of the Nile water among the basin states.
In addition to its hoodwink, Egypt has been and is supporting political opponents, religious radicals and ethnic radicals to destabilize upstream countries in order not to have peace in their countries to develop their nation, which inevitably consider using of their water.
It has to be clear that the population of the basin countries is increasing and the demand for water supply, irrigation and power generation will definitely amplify. Whatever lies and deceptions are implemented, no one can stop the people and the countries that originate the Nile water from using the water from their backyard. It has to be clear that these countries will not continue under poverty and see their people starve while Egypt is enjoying prosperity.
We Ethiopians need to bring the facts to the light and try to stop Egyptian professionals, scientists, journalists and politicians from deceiving the international community.
II. The Nile Water and the GERD
It has to be clear to all the international community and the Ethiopians at large that there is no any significant contribution to the Nile water either from Egypt or the Sudan. However, these two countries have shared 100% of the water among themselves. Ethiopia is contributing 84.1% of the Nile water and has zero shares and the rest of the countries contribute 15.9% and have zero shares from the Nile water.
Egypt wants to keep this unreasonable share of water and keep the upstream countries to support Egypt’s prosperity, while living in poverty. Egypt has been using the World Bank and the other developed nations not to provide loans or grants towards development of the water from the Nile basin. As a result of this, the upstream countries obliged to live under poverty and famine.
Ethiopia contributes 84.1 % percent of the waters for the Nile river system (94.5 Bm3). The Blue Nile 57.1 % percent (54 Bm3), Baro-Akobo (Sobat) 14.3 % percent (13.5 Bm3), Tekezze (Atbara) 12.7 % percent (12 Bm3) – while the contribution from the Equatorial Lakes region is only 15.9 % percent (15 Bm3), but contribution from Ethiopia other than Blue Nile is a total of 27 % percent from Baro-Akobo (Sobat) 14.3 % and Tekezze (Atbara) 12.7 % respectively which is almost double of the contribution from White Nile or the Equatorial Lakes region.
The main water resources problem in Ethiopia is that the major rivers of the country have trans-boundary nature. 70% of Ethiopia’s water resources that are contributing to the 84.1% of the Nile River flow are found in the three sub-basins of the Ethiopian side of the Nile Basin namely; Abay (Blue Nile), Tekeze- Mereb and Baro-Akobo and whereas the population is no more than 40 percent of the country. On the other hand, the water resource available in the east and central river basins is only 30 percent whereas the population in these basins is over 60 percent.
Out of the total 84.1% Nile water contribution of Ethiopia, the GERD is being constructed on Blue Nile (Abbay) river which is contributing 57.1% of the Nile River flow. This Abbay River Basin covers 44% of the surface water source and 26% of the population of Ethiopia.
According to the 1959 agreement between Sudan and Egypt, the Nile water is divided as follows: 55.5 billion cubic meters to Egypt, 18.5 billion cubic meters to Sudan, and 10 billion cubic meters to account for evaporation and seepage. The Al-Jazeera documentary (The GERD, under the title “How big is Ethiopia’s new dam”?) clearly showed that based on the Colonial treaties the Nile’s water shared by Egypt 66%, by Sudan 22%, by Ethiopia 0%, and 12% lost to evaporation. We would like to make clear that the volume of High Aswan Dam 162 billion m3 is more than double of the GERD volume of 75 billion m3. Toshka and El-Salam huge projects of Egypt that have significant effect on the water rights of the upstream countries have estimated investment of about 100 Billion USD in 2017 which is about 20 times the estimated construction cost of the GERD. It has to be noted that Egypt has not consulted any of the upstream countries while developing these projects. In addition to the Nile water, Egypt has groundwater resources in the Nile Valley and Delta, the western desert, and Sinai. The largest groundwater deposit is the giant Nubian sandstone aquifer underneath the eastern part of the African Sahara, which is shared between Egypt and four other countries. It contains over 200,000 billion m3 of non- renewable water in total that can serve for thousands of years. The aquifer underlying the Nile Valley and Delta has a total capacity of 500 billion m3 (200 and 300 billion m3 respectively). Egypt has to learn a lesson from “The Libyan Great Man-made River (GMMR) Project, eighth wonder of the world” embarked by Muammar Qadhafi in 1983” which supplies 6,500,000 m3 of freshwater per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and others.
In addition, Egypt because of its unique location has sea outlet both on Mediterranean and the Red-Sea that makes desalinated water available both from the east and north of Egypt. Egypt is well aware of the recent technological advances that have significantly decreased the production costs of desalinated water.
The GERD is located in Ethiopia; on the Blue Nile River about 20 Km upstream from the Ethiopia-Sudan Border. The GERD is for hydropower which is non-consumptive use and does not stop the flow of the river. The Dam is currently under construction; where totally about 73 % of the project both civil and electro- mechanical work is completed. The GERD has two power plants with capacities of 3750 MW and 2250 MW or total installed capacity of 6000 MW that could generate average energy of 15,692 GWh per year.
GERD is an additional storage dam both for Egypt and Sudan, and also that save water that is lost by evaporation in the desert from Aswan High Dam and the reservoirs in Sudan. It also serves as a silt trap for the dams in Sudan and Egypt. The GERD specifically saves Sudan from the annual flooding of thousands of irrigable area and help to reclaim its irrigable lands that optimize irrigation in Sudan. The GERD also helps to increase the rainfall in the Ethiopian highland as a result of the evaporation from the reservoir that will contribute to the Nile flow. Based on these facts, to build a dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia is not a new issue at all. It was already considered as an option in the 19th century by the British, mainly because of the lower levels of evaporation, sediment control, and regulated flow.
It is clear that GERD has no significant effect as compared to its remarkable benefits both for Egypt and Sudan. It has to be clear that the GERD is being constructed under zero percent water share of Ethiopia. Now what Ethiopia should negotiate is not about the GERD, it has to raise the issue of sharing the Nile water equitably among all the basin states.
III. Cooperation Efforts of the Basin Countries on Equitable Use of Nile Water
Based on the initiative of Ethiopia, a series of the ‘Nile 2002 conferences’ that started in 1993 continued up to 2002. This cooperation effort paved the way for the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) established in 1999. A Shared Vision Programme (SVP) supported cooperation through promoting collaborative action, and trust intended to build a strong foundation for regional cooperation, of which the goal was the creation of an enabling environment for investments and action on the ground (NBI, 1999).
The NBI established a secretariat in Uganda and two subsidiary action programmes (SAPs) in the Eastern Nile (based in Addis Ababa) ENSAP (The Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program) currently includes Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan and the Nile Equatorial Lakes region (in Kigali). NELSAP (The Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program): The Nile Equatorial Lakes region includes the six countries in the southern portion of the Nile Basin: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as the downstream riparian states Egypt and Sudan.
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) 1995-2011 resulted in the development of the Cooperative Framework (CFA) and the establishment of the UNDP D3 project which started the negotiations for a River Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement in 1997; The D3 project had main activities of which was major for the development of the Cooperative framework agreement (CFA). Accordingly, the Panel of Experts (POE) formulated cooperative framework and approved by Council of Ministers (COM). The CFA (2009) adopts the seven most relevant factors for determining equitable and reasonable utilization from Article 6(1) of the 1997 United Nations Watercourses Convention.
The Nile-COM with the exception of Egypt and Sudan absent, agreed and resolved that the CFA is a clean text ready for presentation to the riparian states for signature.
The CFA signing / “Entebbe Agreement”:- Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda signed the Entebbe Agreement on the day it was opened for signature on the May 14, 2010. Kenya signed on the May 19, 2010; Burundi signed on the February 28, 2011. After signing the Entebbe Agreement the four countries Ethiopia; Rwanda; Tanzania and Uganda have ratified the agreement.
Egypt has become stumbling block not to sign the CFA and yet without reached agreement on water allocation, it considers any reduction of the Nile water quantity level as a national security issue. Egypt did not want to sign the CFA which would have been a spring board for all basin states to reach to an agreement on how to share and manage the Nile water. It has to be clear that Egypt’s rigid position will let the Nile basin state countries to take their own unilateral action, which will ultimately be a nightmare for Egypt.
After four years Egypt’s position not to sign the CFA and the tensions between Cairo and Addis Ababa over the GERD project, the three Eastern Nile countries acceded to a Declaration of Principles on 6 March 2015 that lead them to agree on the guidelines of the filling and operation of the GERD. “Ethiopia as the owner of the GERD will commence first filling of the GERD in parallel with the construction of the Dam in accordance with the principles of equitable and reasonable utilization and the causing of no significant harm as provided on the Declaration of Principles (DoP).” In spite of the deception of Egypt, that is what Ethiopia is doing currently- “first filling of the GERD in parallel with the construction of the Dam”. Basically Egypt’s treachery is to use the DoP as scapegoat to gain time Ethiopia not to capitalize on the CFA and its diplomatic efforts to bring back Egypt and Sudan to the table of negotiation to sign the CFA.
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