15th Tripartite meeting on Renaissance dam to be held Thursday

CAIRO – 12 September 2017: The 15th Tripartite Technical Committee meeting on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will be held in Atbara, Sudan, on Thursday and Friday following a four-month hiatus to discuss unresolved points in the initial report on the Renaissance Dam prepared by the French Consultancy Office BRL, the Foreign Ministry's official spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid told Al-Ahram.

Technical experts from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan will participate in the meeting to oversee studies concluded in the 14th meeting held in Addis Ababa in April.

The three countries have asked the Consultancy Office to study documents of the dam’s construction to assess the hydrological, environmental, and economic impact of the mega project on downstream countries.

“BRL said last year that the studies were scheduled to start in late 2016 and should take 11 months, but the process has since been lingering,” according to Ahram Online.

The 6,000-megawatt Grand Renaissance Dam, which is expected to be complete in 2017, is located at the border between Ethiopia and Sudan. Egypt has previously expressed its concern, that the dam would reduce downstream water supply, but Ethiopia maintains its stance that dam would not have a negative impact on Egypt.