Ethiopia inaugurates Africa's biggest dam

GUBA, Ethiopia: Ethiopia inaugurated the continent’s largest hydroelectric project on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed calling it a “great achievement for all black people” despite years of diplomatic rancour over the dam with downstream neighbour Egypt.

For Ethiopia, the Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD), straddling a tributary of the River Nile, is a national project of historic scale and a rare unifying symbol in a country torn apart by ongoing internal conflicts.

The latest figures from its Italian construction firm Webuild said the dam reached 170 metres (550 feet) high and stretched nearly two kilometres (1.2 miles) across the Blue Nile near the Sudanese border.

The $4-billion megastructure is designed to hold 74 billion cubic metres of water and generate 5,150 megawatts of electricity — more than double Ethiopia’s current capacity, it said.

That makes it the largest dam by power capacity in Africa, though still outside the top 10 globally.

“GERD will be remembered as a great achievement not only for Ethiopia, but for all black people,” Abiy said at the opening ceremony, attended by regional leaders including Kenyan President William Ruto and Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

“I invite all black people to visit the dam. It demonstrates that we, as black people, can achieve anything we plan,” said Abiy, who has made the project a cornerstone of his rule.

But neighbouring Egypt, dependent on the Nile for 97 percent of its water, has long decried the project, with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi calling it an “existential threat” and vowing to take all measures under international law to defend its water security.

“For downstream countries, Ethiopia has accomplished GERD as a shining example for black people. It will not affect your development at all,” Abiy said at the ceremony.

‘No longer a dream’

The festivities began the night before with a dazzling display of lanterns, lasers and drones writing slogans like “geopolitical rise” and “a leap into the future”.

Analysts argue the GERD, under construction since 2011, could transform Ethiopia’s economy, boosting industrial production, enabling a shift towards electric vehicles and supplying power-hungry neighbours through regional interconnectors that stretch as far as Tanzania.

Some 45 percent of Ethiopia’s 130 million people lack electricity, according to World Bank data, and frequent blackouts in Addis Ababa force businesses and households to rely on generators.

“It is no longer a dream but a fact,” Pietro Salini, CEO of Webuild, who built the dam, told AFP from the inauguration.

He said they faced many challenges in training workers, mobilising finance and coping with the brutal civil war of 2020-2022 between the government and rebels from the Tigray region.

But now, “this country that was dark in the evening when I first arrived here… is selling energy to neighbouring countries,” said Salini.

He denied there was any reason for neighbouring countries like Egypt and Sudan to be concerned.

“The hydroelectric project releases water to produce energy. They are not irrigation schemes that consume water. There’s no change in the flow,” said Salini.

Attempts to mediate between Ethiopia and its neighbours by the United States, World Bank, Russia, the UAE and the African Union have all faltered over the past decade.

“For the Egyptian leadership, GERD is not just about water, it is about national security. A major drop in water supply threatens Egypt’s internal stability. The stakes are economic, political and deeply social,” said Mohamed Mohey el-Deen, formerly part of Egypt’s team assessing GERD’s impact.

The tensions have not been all bad for Ethiopia’s government.

“Ethiopia is located in a rough neighbourhood and with growing domestic political fragility, the government seeks to use the dam and confrontation with neighbours as a unifying strategy,” said Alex Vines, of the European Council on Foreign Relations.