Ethiopia says its mega-dam on the River Nile is now complete, following years of tensions with Egypt and Sudan over its construction that many feared would lead to war in Africa.
The contentious £3billion project is set to be officially inaugurated in September, Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed told the country’s parliament on Thursday.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa’s largest hydroelectric plant, rises more than 500ft out of the grasslands of eastern Ethiopia and spans 6,000ft across the Blue Nile river.
Construction on the mega-project began in 2011, with the aim of generating electricity for Ethiopia and selling excess energy to its neighbours.
It was built on the Blue Nile, one of the two tributaries to the River Nile, which also flows through Sudan. The Blue Nile provides 85% of the Nile’s waters.
Almost immediately after construction began, Egypt and Sudan warned the dam would massively hamper their own economies that are heavily reliant on the Nile for their own water supplies.
Several years of negotiations failed, and tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt & Sudan threatened to boil over to all-out war, as both sides signed military deals with rival nations in the region to bolster their own security.
During his announcement of the dam’s completion, Ahmed said: ‘To our neighbours downstream – Egypt and Sudan – our message is clear: the Renaissance Dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity.
Satellite image of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile river in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 20, 2022
‘The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia,’ Abiy said.
But neither Egypt nor Sudan see it this way. In 2024, Egypt signed a military cooperation deal with Somalia, a rival of Ethiopia, sending arms, military hardware and special forces to the nation.
It also reportedly planned to send 10,000 soldiers to Somalia as part of a peacekeeping mission.
That deal came after Ethiopia signed a military deal with Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, in which is agreed to give the independent province 12 miles of its own coastline, opening the possibility of allowing a naval base on its land.
That same year, Ahmed warned that anyone planning to invade Ethiopia ought to ‘think ten times’ before doing so.
He said that ‘those who are afar and nearby’ should know that ‘we usually embarrass and repel those who dare try to invade us’.
‘Anyone intending to invade Ethiopia should think not just once but 10 times because one great thing we Ethiopians know is [how] to defend ourselves,’ the Ethiopian leader added.
Ethiopia first began generating electricity at the project, located in the northwest of the country around 30 km from the border with Sudan, in February 2022.
An image taken in 2013 shows workmen preparing to start construction on one side of the dam, which now extends from the hillside and across the river
Construction workers are pictured on the site of the dam in December 2019
Ethiopia hopes the dam will allow the country to keep growing following a decade of increased prosperity between 2000 and 2011, by making it Africa’s largest energy exporter
At full capacity the huge dam can hold as much as 74 billion cubic metres of water and could generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power.
Satellite images taken in 2020 showed water pooling behind the dam, with Ethiopia’s water minister Seleshi Bekele admitting that year that the water level in the reservoir had increased from 1,720 feet (525 metres) to 1,837 feet (560 metres).
The row, which is now threatening to boil over once again, began simmering in 2011, with Egypt in turmoil amid the Arab Spring protests which forced Hosni Mubarak from power and created a leadership vacuum at the top of society.
With Cairo effectively blinded, Ethiopia’s then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi launched a five-year Growth and Transformation plan, with the dam at its heart.
His country, once among Africa’s poorest, was emerging from the end of a decade of unprecedented growth – poverty had fallen, illiteracy rates were down, life expectancy had increased by a decade.
But the nation was still being held back, most notably by a lack of electricity – with 65 per cent of the country not connected to the grid.
The dam would change all of that, providing enough power not just for the citizens of Ethiopia, but a surplus which could be exported to its neighbours, generating profit and providing opportunities for the whole region.
Laying the first brick himself, Zenawi vowed the project would be finished ‘whatever the cost’. He died the following year.
The actual cost of the project is thought to be £3billion, but its financing is murky. Unusually, Ethiopia chose not to apply for international loans to bankroll it, instead turning to its own citizens and private loans.
The central bank, major businesses and everyday citizens were pressured – some say forced – into buying bonds that funded the project, with Ethiopian citizens living overseas saying they also faced pressure to buy in.
Ethiopia has built a 500ft-high, 6,000ft-wide dam across the Blue Nile river – the main source of the Egyptian Nile – for more than a decade
Pictured is a satellite image take in July 2020, showing the the dam filled up significantly
The 500ft-high Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam spans 6,000ft across the Blue Nile river – which supplies Egypt, Ethiopia’s downstream neighbour, with 90 per cent of its fresh water
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile river in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia seen in May 2020
While China is not officially invested in the project, Ethiopia is a major recipient of Chinese loans – receiving the second-highest total of any African country at £2.6billion, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative.
Almost all of the loans were paid after construction on the dam had started.
Chinese firms have also been heavily involved in construction, with multi-million pound contracts awarded to companies specialising in hydroelectric dams.
Claims of corruption have dogged the project, amid rumours surrounding the sudden death of manager Semegnew Bekele in 2018.
Bekele had been due to give a news conference explaining delays to the project, with conspiracy theorists suggesting that he would lift the lid on corrupt activities of those involved.
Shortly before the conference took place he was found shot dead in his car with the engine running. Police ruled the death a suicide, saying he sent phone messages to his loved ones beforehand.
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