The business of national economic development
is always multi-faceted with blurry lines, with politics, economics, technology
and ecology interacting all the time. There is even a peculiar additional
complexity when we deal with strategic national resources such as water. This
complexity amplifies when there are other stakeholders to the same resource but
outside the national borders. Such, it seems, is the story of the recent Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
This article will not attempt to
argue conclusively for or against. It aims at highlighting the multiple aspects
related to the issue, to give the reader(s) an objective background. It should
also be noted that this article is written by a Sudanese. If it was written by,
say, an Ethiopian or an Egyptian, it would have probably been different in some
perspectives.
“Ethiopia has started diverting a
stretch of the Blue Nile to make way for a $4.7bn (£3.1bn) hydroelectric dam
that has caused a dispute with countries downstream, state media say… The Great
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is currently under construction, is part of a
$12bn (£8bn) investment project to boost power exports”, says the BBC report of
May 28, 2013 (BBC News website). “Egypt and Sudan object to the dam. They say
it violates a colonial-era agreement, which gives them rights to 90% of the
Nile's water”, adds the report. Earlier however, the Sudan Tribune Newspaper reported,
on April 5 2013, that “Despite long-standing protest against its execution,
Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, told the newly appointed Ethiopian
ambassador to Sudan, Abadi Zemo, that his country supports the controversial
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project.” Sounds conflicting? Maybe, but that
is the world of politics. Anyway, We shall focus more on the big picture.
The Political History:
Competition among states on water
resources has been a persisting characteristic of regional politics in history.
Competition over fresh water resources is even more significant within this
category. Today, in the world of territorial and strictly border-defined states
the competition is taking larger measures, as every country is trying to secure
as much fresh water as possible, for present and future consumption, with
primary focus on only its own interests. The growing scarcity of fresh water
resources is making the situation more critical.
The Nile is widely known as the
world’s longest river. It originates from and runs through a number of
countries in East Africa (Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda,
Tanzania, Kenya and Egypt). It starts as two distinct rivers, the White Nile
and Blue Nile, with the White Nile originating from the great lakes of Central
Africa and through Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile originating from Lake Tana
in Ethiopia, until they meet in Khartoum, Sudan, and continue north as one
river towards the borders of Egypt, cutting it from south to North, where its
delta is, and ending at the Mediterranean Sea.
The historical civilizations that
rose and demised on the Nile basin (Kush, Ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, etc) had to
compete to gain their desired share of the river’s water and access to the
fertile land surrounding it [1]. However, the scale of those
civilizations’ disputes, and the level of accessibility that they disputed for,
are of no relevance to those of the 20th century and after, since
the stream of modernization starting from that time has become heavily dependant
on large consumption of fresh water for several developmental projects inside
states, from urban life-style consumption to agriculture to hydro-power demand.
Since the first decade of the 20th
century conflicts of interest between Egypt and Sudan regarding securing enough
water for agriculture and hydropower, besides other uses, for each country was
an issue that colonial Britain had to deal with [2]. Britain, which was
in control of most of the “countries” it had created along the Nile, played a
key role in establishing the first “international water treaty” about the Nile
water. Because Britain had the most interest in Egypt, the so-called treaty clearly
favoured Egypt against the future development interests of Sudan and the other
countries [2].
“In 1902, British authorities constructed the low Aswan Dam
on the Nile River, subsequently raising it twice to over 100 feet in height by
1933”[3; pg 5]. From the beginning, the British understood that this move
is to the benefit of Egypt but with the loss of Sudan, and this was fine with
them, because their investment in Egypt was more important than theirs in
Sudan. General Gordon – the British general governor who was killed in
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, by the Sudanese rebelling armies of Mohamed Al-Mahdi – wrote in his way to Sudan:
“The Sudan is a
useless possession, ever was so, and ever will be so... I think Her Majesty's
Government is fully justified in recommending the evacuation” [2;
pg 320]. Other British men of authority have
been more ‘diplomatic’ in expressing their opinion about their ‘possession’ of
Sudan, and regarding their clear favouritism of Egypt, by saying that “It was not that Britain loved
the Sudan less; it was that she loved Egypt more” [2; pg 327]. The British, with their European colonial partners in East
Africa, designed some treaties between the states that had shared the Nile and
its sources to mainly secure Egypt’s unequal share of the river’s water.
“Although the Nile Waters
Agreement reached in 1929 consisted only of an exchange of notes between the
British High Commission in Cairo and the Egyptian Government, it provided for
the regulation of the river until the Nile Waters Agreement of 1959... The
detailed 1929 arrangements `appeared to work solely for the benefit of Egypt
whose established and historic rights were recognized'. Egypt was assured a
minimum of 48 billion cubic metres of water per year, as against 4 billion for
the Sudan, and this left approximately 32 billion unallocated. The agreement
did not include Ethiopia, and stipulated that `no works were to be constructed
on the Nile or its tributaries or the equatorial lakes, so far as they were
under British jurisdiction, which would alter the flows entering Egypt without
her prior approval” [4; pg. 677].
Most of these treaties are still in play today even long
after the colonial powers are gone, as can be seen in the agreement between the
Egyptian and Sudanese governments, mentioned above, in 1959 (bearing in mind
that the treaties the British signed in the name of their colonized nations in
East Africa do not legally carry the obligation of being honoured by the newly
independent and sovereign countries), mostly due to the political power of
Egypt among its neighbouring states, which was challenged more than once, but
eventually prevailed. Many political events happened after colonization was
over, but not necessarily to balance the domination of Egypt. In July 1970, the
High Aswan Dam was constructed by the Egyptian government with the help of the
Soviet Union. Much bigger than the low Aswan Dam, the artificial lake created
by the High Dam came to be known as Lake Nasser. “Lake Nasser extended 150
kilometres into Sudanese territory, and the Government [of Sudan] was paid 15
million Egyptian pounds in sterling [in the early 1960s during the
construction] as compensation for having to resettle as many as 50,000
[Sudanese citizens] who had been displaced”[4; pg 679]. This agreement with Egypt was
signed by a Sudanese military government that had clear favouritism for the
Arabization politics led by the Egyptian government at the time.
Nonetheless, the political
atmosphere of today is significantly different from that of the 1950-60s.
International law is more involved in regulating regional water treaties. Recently,
other African countries that share access to the Nile’s water with Egypt and
Sudan started to voice their concerns again about the unfair share of its
water. A BBC report on May 15, 2013, said that, “Four East African states have
signed an agreement to seek more water from the River Nile - a move strongly
opposed by Egypt and Sudan… Upstream countries including Uganda, Rwanda,
Tanzania and Ethiopia say [the colonial era agreement] is unfair and want a new
deal but nothing has been agreed in 13 years of talks.”
The Ecological and Technical
Problems with Large Dams:
There is sufficient evidence to assume that any large dam
built along the Nile, and its two white and blue parents, would eventually face
the same fate of the High Aswan Dam downstream. There is no doubt that the
economic and developmental benefits of the High Aswan Dam have been very big to
Egypt. However, in the long term, Egypt started to feel the repercussions of
the environmental damage the dam has accumulated through the years. These can
be concluded in “water
logging, salinisation, and river bed erosion” [4; pg 680]. Severe problems are occurring
from these results, and can be mainly summarized in 3 points:
1. By blocking the sediment
flowing with the river’s water through Egypt, the dam has drastically
deteriorated the fertility of the land shoring the Nile in Egypt. Moreover, the
sediment compiling behind the dam has also dramatically decreased the
efficiency of the dam in generating hydropower and controlling the water
reservoir in Lake Nasser.
2. The delta region in the North
of Egypt lost its great fertility and even its level against the sea water,
since it was historically created and preserved by the flow of the sediment
with the river’s water. Today 15% of the power created by the dam goes to
operating huge water pumps that keep the sea water from flooding the delta
region. Another 30% of the dam’s power goes to the factories developed to
produce fertilizers for the lands that lost their fertility due to the loss of
the sediment [5].
3. The need for more water in
Egypt is increasing, due to the increase of its population, while Lake Nasser
is losing its capacity to the accumulated sediment behind the dam and the
evaporation of water from the lake (since the location of the lake is one of
the hottest regions in Africa and the world).
This is a story of a large dam
structure, not only the High Aswan Dam. But wait, there is a twist to it. It is
precisely because of such problems of large dams that eventually Egypt would
want to transfer the problem upstream:
“While Egypt is seriously averse
to the idea of any water being diverted upstream for agricultural purposes, it
has actively encouraged the exploitation of the Nile's hydropower potential.
The dams which were built in the Sudan after the 1959 agreement have been
advantageous for Egypt in so far as they have acted as `siltation basins' that
have stopped a considerable quantity of sediments from reaching Lake Nasser…
Egypt continues to show interest in the creation of more hydropower upstream,
particularly in the Sudan, since this would not decrease the flow of the Nile,
and is also proposing that the huge groundwater potential in southern Sudan
should be exploited” [4; pg 686].
So, we now have two conflicting
interests of the big and strong Egypt downstream: (1) that it wants to keep its
share of the Nile’s water unchanged, but (2) it would encourage dam projects
upstream that help reduce the quantity of sediments reaching Lake Nasser. So,
basically, as long as dam projects upstream do not affect Egypt’s share of the
quantity of the Nile’s water, then Egypt is OK. However, the other countries
who share the Nile basin are not OK with this, because they want both the
hydropower and a more share of the water. So the summary of the conflict is
this: Egypt wants to keep the lion’s share of the Nile’s water, and Sudan is
simply supporting Egypt’s interests for no logical reason other than that Sudanese
governments are accustomed to saying ‘yes sir’ to Egypt. The other countries of
the Nile basin don’t like that (rightly so, one might add).
Are Large Dams Worth Fighting
for?:
In the case the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam, the claim of Ethiopian authorities is that it is mostly a
hydropower generation dam (i.e. less for irrigation and/or water supply). The
question of development policy here is about the compromises taken by
governments for the sake of hydropower, and whether hydropower is worth these
compromises, because development cannot achieve its goals when one sector’s
gain is another sector’s loss. Questions of sustainable development also arise,
since sustainability is gaining more legal ground every day.
International
standards, such as the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), require
that an environmental impact assessment report (EIAR) is prepared or contracted
before conducting the project. The report is required to critically address
certain issues regarding the impact of a large dam project, which are: (a) social
issues – i.e. consequences of people’s displacement and resettlement from
future flooded area; (b) archeological issues – resulting from
destruction or submerging important archeological sites or places of high
cultural value; and (c) environmental issues – i.e. effects of
large scale hydrological alteration of the natural river system with major
impacts on the environment and water quality.
Large dams are known to cause
long-term social and environmental unfavourable impacts – to say the least –
and that the environmental impacts usually catch up with the technical
functionality of the dams themselves—i.e. even the dams’ productivities are
eventually affected negatively because of the accumulating environmental
‘side-effects’. Furthermore, large dams
are usual violators of the peoples’ right to development. “The right to
development is the right of individuals, groups and peoples to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy continuous economic, social, cultural and political
development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully
realized”, says the United Nations [6; pg 21].
There exist legitimate
alternatives to large dams for hydropower production and water harvesting.
These alternatives are usually more sustainable and often more effective in
addressing the direct needs of communities rather than the state’s central
agenda. These alternatives include a range of decentralized models for solar
power, wind power, micro-hydro and water harvesting schemes. The 2000 report of
the WCD stipulates that, “large dam projects should only be approved where they
demonstrably meet the goal of human development - and that alternatives
including decentralised energy schemes should be considered from the start.”[7]
So, with all that in mind, one
has to ask: Are the recent large dam projects along the Nile, such as the
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Merowe Dam in Sudan, really promoting a
people-centered development agenda, or are they actually serving the agenda of
elite groups in the guise of governments?
Conclusion:
This article gave a historical
background on the political record of administrating the water of the Nile
basin. It also gave a general background on the ecological and technical
challenges of large dams. The article then asked a number of critical questions
that beg for objective answers—answers that take all the different aspects in
consideration: political, economic, technological and ecological. The readers
will have to find their own answers.
As for my own general stance, I
can say this: On the political and economic fronts, I support Ethiopia's right
to optimal utilization of its natural resources, (and please let’s not talk
about the so-called historical water agreements. They were simply colonial agreements,
unworthy of honoring today). On the technological and ecological fronts,
however, I remain in general opposition to large dams and loyal to the
alternative approaches of hydro-power and water harvesting. Rare exceptions might
change my default stance if I'm presented with overwhelming evidence.
Notes:
[1] Robert W. July.
1998. A History of the African People. 5th ed. Illinois:
Waveland Press.
[2] Pierre Crabitès.
1912. “Egypt, the Sudan and the Nile.” Foreign Affairs 6(2): 320-328.
[3] Sanjeev Khagram.
2004. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Ithaga:
Cornell University Press.
[4] Ashok Swain. 1997.
“Ethiopia, the Sudan and Egypt: The Nile River Dispute.” The Journal of
Modern African Studies 35(4): 675-694.
[5] Abubakr El-Khalifa.
2007 (March). “Is the Hidden Intent of Merowe Dam to Rid Egypt of the High
Dam’s Problems?” (Arabic). Sudanile.
(أبوبكر الخليفة – هل الغرض الخفي لخزان
مروي هو تخليص مصر من مشاكل السد العالي؟)
[6] H. Zafarullah
& A.S. Huque, eds. 2005. International
Development Governance. New York: Dekker/CRC Press. (quote from a UN
document).
[7] World Commission on
Dams. 2000.
Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-making. (official
report). (quote from the website of Practical Action, a participant
organization in the development of the report).Gussai H. Sheikheldin
(published in the Citizen Newspaper, Sudan, June 2, 2013)
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