Introduction
Situated on the Blue Nile River, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project has emerged as a fissure of sustained geopolitical tensions within Northeast Africa since 2011, pitting Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan against one another. The Ethiopian government took on the project in 2011 at a time when Egypt, which had been opposing Ethiopia’s activities on the Nile, was faced with severe internal conflict emerging from the Arab Spring that culminated in the revolutionary ouster of then-president Hosni Mubarak from power[1]. This dam is expected to become Africa’s biggest hydroelectric power project, producing 6000 MW of power along with a storage volume of 74 billion cubic meters of water once completed[2]. The world’s longest river, the Nile, traverses eleven countries, all of which have varying interests as to how this resource should be used. Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan are of particular interest, since their interests as they relate to the Nile are classified as “very high”[3]. This highlights the fact that Ethiopia stands to gain economically from this large hydroelectric project. Its efforts to establish the GERD have been supported by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), whose staff made a direct contribution of USD $250,000 towards the project’s progression[4]. IGAD, whose member states include Ethiopia and other Horn of Africa nation states, is a regional body responsible for overseeing development, drought mitigation, food security and conflict management among its members.
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