Thursday 12 November 2020
Last update on Thursday, November 12, 2020 At 4:13 PM
After several unsuccessful attempts to settle the dispute over the construction of the Great Renaissance Dam, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan still want to believe in it and are starting a new round of negotiations.
Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resumed talks on Sunday (November 1) to fill and operate Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam. The negotiations will last a week, with the participation of representatives of the African Union, the European Union and the World Bank.
These trilateral talks resume, just over a week after US President Donald Trump suggested that Egypt bomb hydropower infrastructure.
This Monday, November 02, technical and legal experts from the three countries will meet to set up a reference framework for discussions. The results of the meeting will be communicated to the ministers in charge of water resources.
For Cairo, which depends almost entirely on the Nile for its supply of drinking water and irrigation, the Great Renaissance Dam poses an “existential” threat. Sudan, for its part, while hoping that the infrastructure will reduce flooding in its territory, nonetheless sees it as a potential danger to the lives of millions of people, should Ethiopia unilaterally fill the reservoir.
Like the last round of negotiations, which was interrupted in early August following complaints from Egypt, talks between the three neighbors never resulted in an agreement.
Pharaonic $ 5 billion project implemented by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile, the Great Renaissance dam (6,450 megawatts) has been fueling tensions between the three residents of Africa’s longest river, since 2011 Addis Ababa, faced with rising tensions and threats from Egypt, had also militarized the dam site and prohibited its overflight.
Source Ecofin Agency
