Ethiopia
is building a giant hydropower dam on the Nile. The project, however,
makes Egypt unhappy, as its water supply could be threatened. Though
both countries could find ways to benefit from the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam, neither has displayed exemplary conflict-management
skills.
In Egypt, politicians meeting with President Mohamed Mursi suggested subverting Ethiopia’s government and destroying the dam. On live TV. Later, Mursi pledged to “defend each drop of the Nile with our blood.”
For
its part, Ethiopia, home to the main sources of the Nile, has been
steadfast in ignoring the understandable concerns of Egypt, a desert
country that depends on the river for 95 percent of its water. When
Ethiopia began construction of the biggest hydropower facility in Africa, it did so without consulting Egypt.
Neither
country is well-positioned to get its way. Egypt’s revolution has
weakened its government and left the country without a superpower
patron. Gone are the days
when it could dictate its dominance over the Nile, which it bases on
colonial-era agreements that upstream countries have long dismissed.
Ethiopia,
meanwhile, is paying a high price for its heavy-handedness. Because the
World Bank and other multilateral lenders frown on international
waterway projects that lack approval from each shoreline state, Ethiopia
is financing the $4.3 billion project on its own. It has resorted to
pressing its impoverished population to buy bonds. And the dam is only
20 percent built.
This is all lamentable. The dam could benefit both countries.
Ethiopia is well-suited
to generating hydropower because of its high mountains and surprisingly
abundant overall rainfall. What’s more, the power would be valuable
both to Ethiopia, where 83 percent of people have no electricity, and
its neighbors, to whom Ethiopia has offered to sell surplus energy.
Hydropower is usually a fraction of the price of electricity produced using fossil fuels, on which Egypt is 90 percent reliant for power.
Ethiopia
also has an interest in ensuring Egypt is comfortable with the dam:
Only then will it be able to get the financing it needs to complete the
project without paralyzing its economy.
Similarly,
it’s in Egypt’s interest that Ethiopia finish the project. Not only
would the dam provide Egypt cheap energy, but it would also expand the
market for Egyptian goods and services by improving Ethiopia’s standard
of living.
So what should be done? Ethiopia plans to take five
to six years to fill the dam’s 74 billion cubic-meter (2.6 trillion
cubic feet) reservoir; it points to a report that shows the river’s
downstream flow won’t be significantly affected. Egypt has said the
report was insufficient to determine the impact.
Ethiopia could
bridge the divide by agreeing to fill the dam’s reservoir more slowly.
It could also agree to conduct studies on the dam’s environmental
impact, which hasn’t been investigated.
Egypt
should acknowledge that a decline in the Nile’s flow wouldn’t
necessarily be catastrophic. Its water needs are not fixed. In recent
decades, the country’s agricultural sector has become more
water-efficient. Focusing on high-end crops -- fruit, vegetables and
flowers -- could defray the cost of additional investments in
efficiency, such as drip irrigation.
The sooner Egypt
accommodates upstream dam-building, the better off it will be. The
realistic course is to trade approval of the Renaissance dam for terms
that would benefit countries upstream and down.
http://www.bloomberg.com
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