Ministers of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia inspect Renaissance Dam

CAIRO – 17 October 2017: The Water supply ministers of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia visited the construction area of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Tuesday. They met to check up on the construction progress by visiting six sites that lie inside, outside, and at the borders of the reservoir.

The ministers and the members of the technical committee listened to the project manager give an overview of the constructions at the right and left sides of the dam.

The manager stressed on Ethiopia’s eagerness to secure its needs from energy and push for economic development while fulfilling the interests of the Nile Basin countries.

This visit aims to follow up on the studies recommended by the International Panel of Experts regarding the effects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile Basin States.

Since the beginning of the dam's construction in 2011, the upstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, opposed the technical studies of the dam as it would decrease their share in the Nile water resources by 55.5 billion cubic meters and 18.5 billion cubic meters respectively.

However, Ethiopia denies that other downstream countries will be adversely affected by the dam and the prospect of war was raised in 2013 and 2014.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi signed a tripartite joint cooperation agreement in Khartoum on March 23, 2015, between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. The three countries held 14 rounds of consultation on resolving the disputes over the Renaissance Dam. However, these rounds failed to solve the dispute.

Consequently, the Nile Basin countries asked the French firm Artelia Group to join the French consulting group BRL Ingénierie in 2016, while they study the documents of the dam’s construction; assessing the hydrological, environmental, and economic impact of the mega project on the downstream countries.