A view of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Benishangul-Gumuz, Ethiopia, Tuesday.
Brian Inganga/AP
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Brian Inganga/AP
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — With nice fanfare Ethiopia inaugurated its controversial mega-dam on the Blue Nile on Tuesday – the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa however one which’s divided the area and even caught the eye of President Trump.
Fireworks lit up the sky the evening earlier than the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was formally opened, and dancers dressed as engineers in hardhats carried out on the colourful daytime ceremony attended by African dignitaries.
For Ethiopia the disclosing of the 74-billion cubic meter dam, which has been 14 years within the making and price $5 billion, was the fruits of a dream and proved the East African nation the winner in a bitter diplomatic battle over its building.
The 476-foot excessive, 1.2 mile-long dam will greater than double Ethiopia’s electrical energy capability to five,000 megawatts. Virtually half of Ethiopia’s 130 million individuals lack entry to electrical energy and even the capital Addis Ababa experiences common blackouts.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hopes the dam will remodel the nation’s economic system and plans to export the excess energy elsewhere within the area, wish to Kenya. “The Renaissance Dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Abiy mentioned in July.
Neighboring Egypt, nonetheless, views it as nothing lower than a catastrophe. The dam is located on the Blue Nile, a tributary of the Nile, at Ethiopia’s border with one other neighbor — Sudan.
Egypt worries the dam might limit the move of water into the desert nation, resulting in shortages because it is dependent upon the Nile for 97 % of its water.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has known as the dam “an existential threat” and mentioned final month that “”Whoever thinks Egypt will flip a blind eye to its water rights is mistaken.”
Ethiopian girls sporting conventional garments sing on the road because the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is inaugurated in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Tuesday.
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As for Sudan, which is within the midst of a bloody civil battle, it is “between a rock and a hard place,” says Moses Chrispus Okello, an analyst with the South Africa-based Institute for Safety Research suppose tank.
“Sudan suffers annual floods and has a shortage of electricity, both problems that the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is able to address for Khartoum,” he mentioned. “On the other hand Khartoum probably relies on Egypt more than any other country and therefore there’s a diplomatic dimension to this dilemma.”
Egypt lobbied for the dam to be denied worldwide financing, so Ethiopia paid for the challenge itself, although its central financial institution and public bond gross sales.
Makes an attempt at mediation, together with by President Trump in 2019 throughout his first time period, have all failed. Trump brought on ire in Ethiopia on the time by suggesting Egypt would not cease at something to do away with the dam. After failing to dealer a deal, he halted assist to Ethiopia and predicted Egypt would find yourself “blowing up that dam.”
Okello believes Trump bought concerned within the dispute for 2 causes, firstly as a result of he was jealous that Ethiopia’s Abiy had simply received the Nobel Peace Prize, which he is all the time needed, and secondly as a result of Egypt is a significant U.S. ally within the Center East.
In his second time period Trump once more ruffled feathers by claiming lately that america “stupidly” paid for the constructing of the dam, prompting an Ethiopian official on the Gerd Coordination Workplace to reply that “no foreign aid” was utilized in its building.
