Dam Talks Flow Toward New Negotiation Terms

Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chairperson of the African Union and president of South Africa, is expected to resolve - this week - the points of divergence that Ethiopia and Egypt failed to settle over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The trilateral negotiation over the Dam was resumed two weeks ago involving the African Union as a lead negotiator. Ramaphosa, who was twice arrested for his involvement in politics while he was a student and has a wide ranging business and academic background before he held strong positions in South Africa's political sphere, is handling the issue and is expected to pass an amicable resolution.

Yet the negotiating countries fail to see eye to eye on four major legal and technical divergence points: future development on the river, conflict resolution, third party involvement during disputes, and data sharing.

The Egyptians want any future development involving the Nile River to be subject to their approval, which Ethiopia finds hard to swallow. Egypt also requires a binding arbitration agreement to be signed as a way to resolve future conflicts. The Egyptians demand that Ethiopia agree to their proposal of opening an Egyptian office at the Dam to directly monitor its operations.

Ethiopia in turn demands Egypt share information and data in relation to water usage in their territory for both hydroelectric and irrigation dams. With the latest negotiations, the two countries are stuck on these points of difference and have thus far failed to reach an agreement.

"The current negotiation also appears to be failing since the outstanding issues are major differences of the two countries," said a source who is well aware of the negotiation process.

Ethiopia launched construction of the five-billion-dollar hydroelectric Dam almost a decade ago, aiming to increase the nation's access to power and to support the economy from the revenues generated from power export. However, Egypt has expressed fears that the Dam will threaten water supplies, which feeds its agriculture and economy.

The countries have ended up locked in years of negotiations and turmoil in relation to water filling and operations of the Dam. In the legal aspect the Egyptians have been pushing hard by saying that the 1959 agreement should remain in place. They have also advocated that the Dam should not hold more than 14 billion cubic metres of water at a time.

The baseline of the 1959 treaty allotted the Nile water resources between Egypt and Sudan and guaranteed Egypt 55.5 billion cubic metres annually and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres without the inclusion of Ethiopia.

What keeps Egypt up at night is Ethiopia's refusal to recognise a single cubic metre of water quota to be allocated to Egypt throughout all the stages of negotiations, according to a hydro expert who wanted to remain unnamed.