Nile Dam: Egypt plays a weak hand

The country has few options to end the stalemate over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been billed as a transformational project for Ethiopia, where currently some 60 percent of the population does not have access to electricity.

Ethiopians across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support its construction, which is expected to generate about 6,500 megawatts of hydropower. Some will be exported to neighbouring countries.

Last July, when the first filling phase was completed, loading 4.9 billion cubic meters of water into the dam’s reservoir, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called it a “turning point” in Ethiopia’s development. The second filling phase, totalling 13.5 billion cubic meters of water, is expected to begin this July.

But not everyone is as enthusiastic. Egypt, as a downstream country that relies on the Nile for fresh water, believes the project will put its supplies in jeopardy. Water-sharing agreements reached in 1929 and 1956 gave Egypt the right to a lion’s share of the Nile’s water resources, but the GERD threatens to revise these deals. Egypt’s insistence on its historical rights to the river has angered Ethiopia as well as other African nations that support the dam’s construction.

Egypt is thus in a predicament: Addis Ababa is determined to proceed, and Cairo is left with very few options.

Ethiopia’s Resolve

Since 2011, when Ethiopia laid the groundwork for the GERD, it has regularly engaged in talks with Egypt and Sudan, another downstream country, to resolve the dispute over water rights.

But Egypt has accused Ethiopia of not negotiating in good faith, believing the Ethiopians are trying to draw out the talks as long as possible rather than reach an agreement.

Last month’s negotiations in Kinshasa failed, just like last year’s talks in Washington, because Ethiopia refused to commit to a binding agreement over filling time and subsequent water release into the Nile. Ethiopia is interested only in a deal on general principles, one that doesn’t require it to make concessions or give guarantees. It has rejected outright Egypt’s claim to 55 billion cubic meters of water annually because it would affect its own supplies during periods of drought, which could last up to 18 months. (Likewise, Egypt’s main concern over the dam is how it will affect supplies during extended periods of drought.)

Ethiopia has offered only to inform Egypt and Sudan about the filling process that will begin in July through operators designated by the two countries.

The Egyptians and Sudanese see this as an attempt to buy time and impose new realities on the ground, since the Ethiopian proposal doesn’t specify what information the government in Addis Ababa is willing to share.

But Addis Ababa has little incentive to concede much more; the Biden administration has already released $272 million in aid to Ethiopia that had been frozen under former President Donald Trump because it refused to sign a U.S.sponsored water agreement with Egypt.

The delinking of financial aid to the GERD negotiations assured Addis Ababa that the U.S. would not authorise an Egyptian military strike against the dam. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has also expressed the United States’ willingness to help resolve the dispute.

But Ethiopia is keen on keeping the U.S., European Union and United Nations out of the talks, preferring instead to have only the African Union mediate. Addis Ababa believes other sub-Saharan African countries will empathise with its cause and tacitly relate to its perception of Egypt as a colonial power.

The Military Option

Egypt has repeatedly threatened to use force to defend its rights to the Nile. In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said that the only issue that could drive Egypt to war was water.

And earlier this month, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi warned that blocking Egypt’s access to the Nile would lead to “inconceivable instability in the region that no one could imagine.” Over the past few weeks, Egypt has signed military cooperation agreements with three Nile River riparian states: Sudan, Uganda and Burundi. The Egyptian air force is theoretically capable of striking the GERD, now that the U.S. has lifted its veto on France’s sale of SCALP-EG cruise missiles. The Rafale jets delivering the missiles would need escort fighter jets, ideally the SU-35 jets, of which Egypt has received five.

However, the Egyptian air force may have trouble integrating them into its arsenal because they are challenging to fly. Moreover, despite the sise of the Egyptian air force, most of its fleet is obsolescent. It has very few jets capable of executing such a complex operation.

Egypt would need Sudan’s support to target the GERD, but the Sudanese aren’t interested in going to war. Egypt and Sudan held two joint air drills simulating an attack on enemy targets, but an assault on the GERD is unlikely.

Officials from both countries have said all options are on the table to resolve the dispute, but for Sudan, this means going to the U.N. Security Council as a last resort. Sudan’s foreign minister has already ruled out a military solution to the stalemate, saying that all diplomatic options need to be exhausted.

Access to Nile water resources has been a preoccupation for many Egyptian leaders. In the 1950s, Gamal Abdel Nasser repeatedly invited Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to visit Cairo, but the invitations were declined. Nasser even entertained the idea of uniting the Nile Valley countries, an idea Ethiopia adamantly rejected.

Failing to sway Haile Selassie to cooperate, Nasser sought to destabilise Ethiopia, as he did to Sudan after it unilaterally declared independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956.

Former President Hosni Mubarak weakened Egypt’s hand by cutting diplomatic ties with Ethiopia after an attempt on his life was made in 1995 while he was in Addis Ababa for an African summit. He isolated Egypt from Ethiopia and most of Africa, suspending the Egyptian Ethiopian Business Council’s activities for 17 years. Mubarak’s shortsightedness allowed Ethiopia to launch its gigantic project without having to worry about Egypt’s approval. Egypt also suspended its membership in the Nile Basin Initiative in 2010 after six riparian states signed the Entebbe Agreement, which reduced Egypt’s and Sudan’s shares of water resources from the Nile.

More recently, El-Sissi’s detractors have accused him of weakening Egypt’s negotiating position by signing the controversial 2015 Declaration of Principles, which offered compensation to downstream countries for the construction of the GERD. By signing the deal, Egypt effectively recognised Ethiopia’s right to fill the dam’s reservoir and impaired its own right to object.

Egypt’s foreign minister even asked his Russian counterpart to step in and dissuade Ethiopia from making unilateral decisions that could affect Egypt’s water supplies, despite knowing that Addis Ababa is opposed to foreign mediation.

El-Sissi has blamed the water crisis on the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak’s regime.

He has argued, rather unconvincingly, that Ethiopia would not have constructed the GERD had the uprising not occurred. But the truth is that plans for the dam date back to 2001.

In fact, Egypt was already considering the consequences of the dam’s construction in 2009, when it formed a committee to assess the situation that included representatives from the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, interior, water resources and electricity.

Construction of the GERD has reached a point of no return.

And as a downstream country, Egypt has no option but to keep communication lines open.

Whereas Ethiopian leaders from Haile Selassie to Abiy Ahmed have shown resolve in managing their country’s water resources, Egyptian leaders from Nasser to el-Sissi have failed to protect theirs.