Podcast on Background and Future Impact of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

 The International Crisis Group (ICG) posted on 26 September 2025 a 39-minute podcast titled "Ethiopia's Grand and Contested Dam" with Murithi Mutiga and Alan Boswell, both with the ICG.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the largest in Africa and was financed mostly by Ethiopians.  Egypt perceived the dam as a threat to its downstream water supply while Ethiopia saw it as an essential hydropower development project.  Sudan was caught in the middle, seeing both potential benefits and problems, but has recently sided with Egypt.  

Now that the dam is completed, Egypt's major concern as a downstream country is low water flow during successive years of drought in the Nile Basin.  Reduction of tension between Ethiopia and Egypt requires trust building.  In the meantime, there is the possibility of Egyptian proxy activity aimed at Ethiopia.  

Ethiopia and Egypt: Nile Water Negotiations

Ethiopia Insight posted on 29 October 2019 a commentary titled "Grand Nile Compromise--A Sysphean Task?" by Mahemud Tekuya, PhD candidate at University of the Pacific.

Ethiopia and Egypt agreed to resume stalled talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam at a meeting on the margins of the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi. The author suggests to find a way forward it may be necessary to abrogate the 1902, 1929, and 1959 Nile water agreements to which Ethiopia was never a signatory.

Nile Waters Dispute: Fill Rate Behind the Dam

The International Crisis Group published on 20 March 2019 a report titled "Bridging the Gap in the Nile Waters Dispute."

The study focuses on the different positions of Ethiopia and Egypt on the fill rate behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under construction on the Blue Nile so that the downstream flow of Nile water does not adversely affect Egypt.

Ethiopia: Grand Renaissance Dam

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) published in February 2016 a report titled "Energy Dialogues in Africa: Is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Transforming Ethiopia's Regional Role?" by Agathe Maupin, visiting senior research fellow at SAIIA.

The paper identifies challenges to energy cooperation between Ethiopia and countries in the region.  It argues that Ethiopia's ownership of the GERD, the recent trade agreement between SADC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the East African Community, and growing interest in regional power pooling have created a timely opportunity for greater energy cooperation.  This cooperation will be sustained by an increase in power supply in the region and the shifting national perspectives on regional projects.

Egyptian President to Visit Ethiopia

The New York Times published on 26 January 2015 an oped titled "Sisi Goes to Addis Ababa" by Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is scheduled to visit Addis Ababa this weekend.  This will be the first visit to Ethiopia by an Egyptian president since 1995.  De Waal urges el-Sissi to take advantage of this visit to finally make progress on joint management of the Nile River.  He argues that Egypt should cooperate with Ethiopia to manage the Nile's waters and join the Nile Basin Initiative's Cooperative Framework Agreement.

Globalizing Nile Water Issues

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) published a commentary that first appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly on 13 February 2014 titled "Globalizing Water Projects" by Helmi Sharawy, former director of the Arab and African Research Centre in Cairo. 

The author argues for a global approach to African water issues, including differences among countries in the Nile Basin. 

Hydropower Politics: The Struggle for Control of the Nile

The July 2013 issue of Africa in Fact: The Journal of Good Governance Africa has a useful analysis titled "Hydropower Politics: The Struggle for Control of the World's Longest River" by Elissa Jobson, a freelance journalist based in Ethiopia.

Nile Waters Update

Nile River. Flickr/David Berkowitz

The March 2013 issue of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective contains an article titled "Who Owns the Nile? Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia's History-Changing Dam" by Andrew Carlson, professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.

It offers a useful background of the dispute over Nile water allocation and includes an update on the status of the Grand Renaissance Dam being constructed on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia.

The Nile Water Issue

One of the most important water issues in the world today concerns the Nile. The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) published in September 2012 a paper that examines the implications of recent efforts to avoid conflict and manage and utilize the Nile by the ten riparian countries. The paper argues that it is imperative to give priority to the most contentious areas of the Nile Basin by capitalizing on the current opportunities presented by Egypt's gestures of goodwill.

The author is Kidan Kiros Bitsue, a lecturer at the Centre for Federal Studies at Addis Ababa University and a PhD candidate in the College of Development Studies.

Click here to access the study.