Following recent encouraging statements on the part of Cairo and Addis Ababa, the first and long-awaited meeting to discuss the effects of the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam was held in Sudan on Monday. These statements have seemed to raise hopes of an agreement between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on the dam. Egyptian Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel-Mottaleb underlined during the meeting that Egypt supported an initiative put forward by the Ethiopian prime minister to treat the Renaissance Dam as a regional joint venture between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia so that the three countries could share its benefits. He stressed that the time had come to consider a new strategy for investment opportunities in order to achieve the best results for the three counties. However, he also pointed to the importance of cooperation and coordination between them. The meeting, which was attended by the ministers of irrigation of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, was supposed to be held as early as August, but was delayed several times. Diaa Al-Qousi, an expert on water issues, was relieved that it was held after he expressing fears that it could be cancelled altogether. He believed that the arena was set for possible progress on the issue. “Egypt's prime minister expressed an interest in participating in building the dam and Ethiopia's prime minister welcomed this. Negotiations and the will to agree could be fruitful. After all, the latest tensions and confrontations between the two states did not seem to reap any fruits for either,” Al-Qousi told the Weekly. The meeting is supposed to be followed by several other meetings that aim to reach an agreement on a partnership in the Renaissance Dam project in a way that does not affect the water share of the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, and that also benefits Ethiopia. Maghawri Diab, a professor of hydrogeology and water resources, noted that any delay in resolving the problem was in the interest of Ethiopia, which was going ahead with the building process and was imposing a de facto situation on the ground. “The meeting should reach a solution, rather than be the means for bargains, delusions or buying time,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Any agreement, Diab added, should be immediate and based on steps such as stopping the building process for at least six months, a pledge from Ethiopia to avoid any possible future danger for Egypt as a result of the dam, and preferably sticking to the original capacity of the Dam at 11 or 14 billion cubic metres. At present, the dam is planned to be 145 metres high and 1,800 metres long with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metres. This high storage capacity will have negative impacts on the amount of water coming to Egypt in the Nile. Diab criticised the Egyptian government and wondered how the prime minister had reached the conclusion that the dam could bring prosperity to Egypt. Many have been surprised by Egypt's saying that it would consider participating with Ethiopia in the construction of the dam. Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi told a cabinet meeting last month that the dam would bring prosperity for Egypt, Ethiopia and the Nile Basin countries, and he emphasised that Ethiopia had no desire for greater water availability but only sought to generate electricity through the new dam. Abdel-Mottaleb said at the same meeting that there was “complete coordination” among the authorities in this regard and that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia would all benefit from the dam. Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn also announced last month that his country welcomed the participation of Egypt and Sudan in the construction of the dam and stressed that the dam would not affect the water interests of the downstream countries, calling for turning the project into a partnership rather than a source of conflict. Egypt stated that it might take part in the building of the dam without declaring its conditions for doing so. However, Diab pointed to obstacles such as the absence of accurate information about the dam, its location, the geological characteristics of the land on which it would be built, the storage capacity of the dam, and the way water would be stored behind it. In addition, there has been hardly any information on the safety features concerning the secondary Saddle Dam. “How can a partnership take place with all these drawbacks and without an agreement on the operating process,” Diab asked. A proper partnership between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, Al-Qousi added, should mean the partnership of the three states in designing the dam in such a way that benefited all Nile basin states. “Egypt should take part in the operating process, in water storage, in marketing the generated electricity and above all in the profits,” he said. The recent meeting was also supposed to discuss recommendations by the international technical committee of experts tasked with assessing the dam's impact. The committee concluded in its final report in July that studies of the dam's impact were still basic and not detailed enough for the establishment of a major project like the Renaissance Dam. It recommended further studies. In June, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia agreed to start negotiations on the recommendations made by the international tripartite technical committee. The agreement was declared after former foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr paid a visit to Ethiopia and Sudan to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's foreign minister was expected to visit Egypt early in July, but the visit was cancelled owing to the events following the 30 June Revolution. The date of a new visit has not been disclosed. Construction on the Renaissance Dam began in May 2011, after upstream states, with the exception of Congo, signed the Entebbe Agreement. This is supposed to replace the 1959 treaty that enshrines Egypt and Sudan's lion's share of Nile water — at 55.5 and 18 billion cubic metres, respectively — and the right to veto any projects built along the river. Cairo and Khartoum have refused to sign the agreement. Southern Sudan signed it in April. Egypt fears that Ethiopia's $4.6 billion mega-dam project will diminish water flows to its territory and insists that its historic water rights be respected. The Nile River, of which Ethiopia sources 85 per cent of the water, is a lifeline to over 90 per cent of Egyptians, providing the country with nearly 85 per cent of its water. Diab pointed to the points that Egypt is relying on in its negotiations with Ethiopia, namely the report of the technical committee, the other studies that are available, and the international law which states that on international rivers a country cannot establish a project that could harm another country. “Egypt should take more active and stronger action on the international level to resolve the issue. It does not have an alternative to the Nile's water,” he said, with Al-Qousi adding that as a result of Egypt's rising population the country would even need more of it.
