Economic development is impossible without enough power generation. As countries began to develop, the industrial sectors expand, Besides, the lives of their people altered step by step that their electric consumption increases. If we considered the experiences of the developed countries, they developed the capacity of power generating projects parallel to their rising demands.
When these countries built their dams on country cross rivers, there were rejections from countries to which the rivers flow. In fact, there were various hydropower dams in different countries that had controversies during their construction. However, final results of these hydropower dams proved their significant importance in economic integrations among neighboring countries.
Available documents indicated that there are more than 57,000 big dams worldwide, which are higher than 15 meters. China, the United States of America, India, Japan and Brazil are among world countries known for having dams.
The countries with the most large dams under construction are currently China, Turkey, South Korea, Japan and Ethiopia.
Large dams have provoked opposition for numerous social, environmental, economic and safety reasons. The main reason for opposition worldwide are the huge numbers of people evicted from their lands and homes to make way for reservoirs. These concerns were true in some of those dams and irrelevant to others.
Instead of the pessimistic expectations, the reality showed that there were pessimistic results after completion of dams. The livelihoods of many millions of people were improved because of the various opportunities created due to the construction of the dams.
There are also opportunities to people to breed fishes in manmade lakes, which could feed millions.
It is known that nearly one-fifth of the world’s electricity is generated by dams. Dams also provide flood control, supply water to cities, and can assist river navigation. In most cases, dams have multipurpose. They provide electricity, they serve for breeding fish and other sea foods and they also serve as tourist destinations.
It is usual for one country to learn from a country that build hydropower dams. According to some analysts hydroelectricity is cheap to produce once dams are built. The problem is the huge costs of building dams and the long time it takes to build them. If we take Itaip Dam, for instance, it cost 20 billion USD and took 18 years to build.
At this time all of the aforementioned countries that developed a number of big dams have well developed economy that they managed not only to feed their citizens but also to support developing countries in various ways.
Some of them are still constructing additional dams to generate enough power that could shoulder the growing economy. Ethiopia is one of these countries that determined to use its water resource for hydropower dams. As a result, it has been contracting dams including the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam, which coasts 4.7 billion USD having taken the experience from some countries.
The Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam has multifaceted benefits to the downstream countries like other dam projects that had affirmative impact on downstream countries.
Hydropower politicians argue that he Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam could offer both Sudan and Egypt constant amount of water throughout the years. It is known that there are rainy seasons and dry seasons. During the dry season the Sudan and Egypt are used to getting reduced amount of water that the rainy seasons. The completion of the EGRD; however, will solve that problem as the two countries will get constant amount of water from year to year.
During the rainy season, there are also damages due to high flood to downstream countries. The damage will be decreased meaningfully after the completion of the dam. Apart from the reduction of the flood damages, Egypt and the Sudan could be benefited from irrigated agriculture that could benefit their citizens.
If we considered the Ethiopian economy it was deteriorated some twenty five years ago. The country had a small amount of power as the entire economy was low. But the situation has dramatically changed. The poor Ethiopians need to work hard so as to change poverty.
Currently, the poverty level in the country is 22.2 percent. The country has planned to alleviate poverty and ensure sustainable economic growth using its natural resources. This is one of the major options that the country has to use to feed its rising population.
Unlike the downstream countries that consume much water, Ethiopia so far used only insignificant amount of its water resources.
Despite its huge hydropower potential, it only used a small percent of its resource so far. Even considering the dams under construction including the EGRD, Ethiopia’s consumption of water remain very low. Besides, its investment on hydropower dams has been taking place recently. Ethiopia has been constructing various dams the GERD in a bid to alleviate poverty and ensure sustainable economic development.
The people and government of Ethiopia have continued their efforts to create mutual understanding and better diplomatic relations with Sudan and Egypt. Egypt has still resistance to accept the importance of the project to the downstream countries.
Egypt has been attempting to apply the colonial treaty signed in 1959 between the two downstream countries as a binding treaty.
In fact, that treaty let Egypt, the zero contributor to the Nile Waters; use 55.5 billion meter cube of the waters and the Sudan to use 18.5 per cent of the water. It left no opportunity to Ethiopia, the major contributor to the Nile Waters, to develop any projects on its own resource.
Ethiopia has become one of Africa’s emerging countries. Its industry has also been growing from time to time. This growing economy needs huge amount of power. Available documents indicated that the nation had only 370 mega watts before 1991. The coverage of electricity in 1995 was 54 percent, which later developed to more than 2000 MW.
According to the GTP, the plan was to stretch the 2,000 MW to 10,000MW that in the first GTP, the country has carried out its hydro-electric power dam constructions, registering encouraging results with political commitment and public support. There are indications that the efforts that were exerted in the first GTP will also strengthened in the second Growth and Transformation Plan.
The EGRD is under construction as per the schedule. It More than 70 percent of the construction has already completed. Besides, the country has been exerting a tremendous effort to bring Egypt to the table so as to apply a win-win solution.
Previously, Ethiopia’s diplomatic relations with downstream countries was characterized by discretion, suspicion, ambiguity, backstabbing and arm twisting. However, this has been changing from time to time at least Egypt has admitted that Ethiopia has the right to utilize its resources for development.
The concerns of the downstream countries particularly Egypt was the reduction of the amount of water that flows to downstream countries and the international standard of the construction of the dam.
It is explained vividly from the very beginning that the government of Ethiopia had studied before the lunching of the construction of the dam. However, it has been attempting to negotiate again and again to convince Egypt the insignificant impact of the dam.
This fact has also proved by the international panel of experts backing Ethiopia’s previous studies. Although confusing issues have already become vivid that the EGRD has no significant efforts on the downstream countries, there are still using various means, direct or indirect, to hinder the country’s strides.
Ethiopia has persistently working not only to ensure the insignificant impact of the dam to downstream countries but also to enhance equitable water utilization among member countries of the Nile Basin.