Nile River valley countries Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan signed a cooperation deal regarding Ethiopia’s giant hydropower dam project, the Grand Renaissance Dam. The cooperation agreement is seen as a bid to ease tensions between the countries over water supplies.
The deal is expected to pave the way for further diplomatic cooperation over the dam. No details of the agreement were immediately released.
Ethiopia and Sudan lie on tributaries of the Nile, the Blue Nile and White Nile respectively. Both the Blue and the White feed the Nile which Egypt relies on exclusively to meet its water needs. The hydropower project in Ethiopia has been ramping up tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia for several years.
Ethiopia maintains that the dam will not disrupt the river’s flow and hopes the project will transform it into a power hub for the electricity-hungry region.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told a gathering in Khartoum: “I reaffirm that Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam will not cause any harm to downstream countries.”
Over the past several years Egypt has objected to the Dam and has pointed to a 1929 UK colonial treaty giving the vast majority of the river’s water to Egypt and Sudan. Although signing the cooperation deal, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed his country’s dependence on Nile waters. “You will develop and grow and I am with you, but be aware that in Egypt the people live only on the water that comes from this river,” he said.