Egypt State Information Service reported yesterday that the Foreign Ministry sent “a formal document to all Egyptian embassies abroad about Egypt’s stance over Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam”.
According to the news, Egypt embassy around the globe are ordered “to contact foreign governments and media outlets to clarify the Egyptian stance over the controversial dam”.
Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Badr Abdel Atti said that:
“The document underlined Egypt’s firm position on the Nile water file, which is based on the principles of mutual benefit among all parties.
The Ethiopian side does not provide any information about the dam.
Ethiopia recognized the negative effects of the dam on the downstream states, although it previously announced that the dam would not affect the downstream states. The negotiations are necessary in order to avoid any serious developments that might affect Egypt’s national security.”
It was not immediately clear what the document – referred to in the news – contains.
However, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released the following document last week.
(You may read below)
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Press release
Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
March 17, 2014
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Egypt’s Perspective towards the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam Project (GERDP)
Ten years ago within the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), the three Eastern Nile Countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan) jointly agreed to study their national plan projects through an agreed mechanism which was named the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP). A regional power trade study was conducted, in which two sites in Ethiopia were identified for potential dam projects, and an international consultancy firm was hired by the three countries to conduct pre-feasibility studies of two dams, which were finalized in year 2008. The two proposed dams were to be located on the Blue Nile, the first called Mandaya, with a total capacity of 49.2 BCM, and the second called Border with a capacity of 14.5 BCM. In the mean time, the Norwegian Government, upon the request of the government of Ethiopia, started to conduct separate feasibility studies for additional two Dams, named Mandaya and Beko Abo.
Unexpectedly, and without any prior notification, the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) declared in February 2011 its intention to construct a new dam on the Blue Nile named “Project X”. This declaration led the Norwegian government to cancel the studies of the additional dams due to the unclarity of Ethiopian plans and preferences.
By the end of April 2011, Ethiopia announced unilaterally the construction of a large dam on the Blue Nile called “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” (GERD) with a height of 145 m, storage capacity of 74 BCM, installing capacity of 6000 MW, and a total cost of US$ 4.78 billion. Ethiopian officials claimed at the beginning that the downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan) would not be harmed and in fact would benefit from the project. However, these statements were then changed gradually to reflect the recognition of the GOE that the dam would have impacts on the downstream countries, but that those impacts would be mitigated and compensated through water saving projects in South Sudan.
Former Prime Minister, Dr. Essam Sharaf, Prime Minister of Egypt at the time, agreed with the late Ethiopian Prime Minister “Meles Zinawi” during an official visit to Addis Ababa in May 2011, to establish an International Panel of Experts (IPOE), composed of two National members from each of the three countries, in addition to four international experts, in order to provide sound review/assessment of the potential impacts of the project on the two downstream countries, and any associated benefits to be expected.
The IPOE held six meetings from May 2012 to May 2013, during which the documents provided by the GOE on the GERD in the field of Dam Safety, Water Resources, Environment, and Socio-Economic were reviewed and evaluated. The IPOE finalized its Final Report and submitted it to the three Governments on the end of May 2013.
The Final Report, which was approved and signed by all members of the IPOE, submitted the following main findings and recommendations:
Most of the submitted and reviewed documents have been finalized after starting the implementation of GERD, some of them have been finalized and submitted after the establishment of the IPOE.
The environmental and socioeconomic report fails to address the impacts on the downstream countries.
The dam engineering and safety documents are level 1 design and not good for construction, and attention should be given to the saddle dam which is the weakest point.
The cost/benefit analyses studies of the project were not provided.
Some of the identified documents were not submitted to the IPOE (i.e. Dam Break Analysis).
The present Hydrological and Reservoir Simulation Study shows detrimental impacts on Egypt’s water demand and High Aswan Dam (HAD) Hydropower generation, taking into account the current specifications and proposed filling criteria suggested by the Ethiopian side (filling the GERD in 6 years).
The IPOE Report further illustrated, the necessity of conducting two additional studies in the followings areas:-
1) Water resource system/hydropower model study
2) Transboundary Environmental and Socio Economic Impact Assessment study.
In a further step, and in the spirit of cooperation and willingness by Egypt to reach agreement with the GOE on the project, the Egyptian Foreign Minister visited Addis Ababa in June 2013 to exchange views and discuss with his counterpart the way forward regarding the implementation of the IPOE Report. Both Ministers agreed to embark on consultations at the technical and political levels, with the participation of the Republic of the Sudan, to implement in a speedy manner the International Panel of Experts’ recommendations. The Ethiopian Foreign Minister announced publicly during the visit, his country’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the IPOE Final report, and not to cause any harm to Egypt.
Despite the agreement on the urgency of starting the tripartite consultations on the implementation of the IPOE recommendations, especially in light of the Ethiopian government’s unimpeded construction at the site of the project, the first trilateral meeting at the level of ministers of water resources and irrigation was not held in Khartoum until five months later, in November 2013, followed by two rounds of talks in December 2013 and January 2014.
Throughout the three rounds, Egypt was keen to reach agreement with both Ethiopia and Sudan on the establishment of a joint mechanism for the implementation of the IPOE recommendations. Some issues were agreed upon at the second meeting held in December 2013, such as the overall objective of the tripartite committee, the decision to resort to a sound international consultancy firm to conduct the missing studies, and the need to finalize all the studies in a timeframe of one year. However, there was a deadlock on other significant issues such as the establishment of an International Panel of Experts, due to the Ethiopian continuous rejection to include any International Experts in the work of the proposed joint tripartite committee which would supervise on the conduct of the recommended studies and evaluate them, in accordance with a proposal presented by Egypt to ensure efficiency, professionalism and a neutral technical opinion in case of differences between the national members of the tripartite committee. Furthermore, Ethiopia also refused to discuss an Egyptian proposal on Confidence Building Measures, although it was drafted in a manner that reflected previously publicly announced commitments by Ethiopian officials regarding the impact of the dam on Egypt’s water interests.
In view of the above, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt conducted its own hydrological transboundary impact assessments of the GERDP according to the announced dimensions. These assessments provide strong grounds to believe that the GERDP would cause appreciable harm, including material environmental and socioeconomic harm to Egypt.
Egypt has never denied the right of Ethiopia and/or any other Nile Basin country to develop and utilize its water resources for developmental needs. On the contrary, Egypt has always supported and participated in such programs for the benefit of its brotherly riparian countries and continues to be ready to do so.
However, regrettably despite the absence of complete environmental and hydrological impact assessment studies, Ethiopia has continued the construction process at the dam site in violation of all the well-known international legal principles regarding projects and/or constructions on international rivers, particularly; the obligation to prevent harm to other riparian states, the general obligation to cooperate, the obligation of prior notification and prior consultations with the potentially affected states, the obligation to determine through an impact assessment whether the planned activities may have an adverse effect upon another riparian state sharing the same international watercourse, and the obligation to exchange data and information on a regular basis.
It’s worth mentioning as well, that the conduct of the Ethiopian government is inconsistent with its obligations according to the 1902 Treaty between Great Britain and Ethiopia in which article 3 reads “His Majesty the Emperor Menilik II, King of Kings of Ethiopia, engages himself towards the Government of His Britannic Majesty not to construct or allow to be constructed any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tana, or the Sobat, which would arrest the flow of their waters except in agreement with His Britannic Majesty’s Government and the Government of Sudan”, and the the 1993 Agreement on the framework for cooperation between Egypt and Ethiopia, in which each party is committed to “refrain from engaging in any activity related to the Nile waters that may cause appreciable harm to the interests of the other party” in pursuance of Article 5 of the Agreement.
It is important to note as well, that Egypt stands ready to engage in a transparent and serious negotiation process with the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan to ensure the agreement on a win win scenario that would ensure the fulfillment of Ethiopia’s developmental needs, as well as the interests of Sudan, while preserving Egypt’s water security. However, absent of such an agreement, and the continued construction by the GOE of the said dam, creates a fait accompli that potentially constitutes a significant threat to Egypt’s national and water security.
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