Egypt, Sudan Agree to Six-Month Study of Ethiopia Hydropower Dam

Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan agreed to complete studies within six months on the impact of an Ethiopian hydropower dam on the main tributary of the Nile river after Egypt raised concern about water shortages.

A committee of four experts from each nation will investigate the hydrological, social and environmental effects of the $4.2 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry said on its website today. International consultants will implement the findings, it said. Foreign experts will help settle any disputes. The dam is scheduled to be finished in 2017.

Egypt, which relies on the world’s longest river for almost all its water, has said that it will suffer shortages while the dam’s reservoir is filled and during operation of a 6,000-megawatt power station. Ethiopia says the project will not significantly harm Sudan or Egypt and is based on a principle of “equitable utilization” of the Nile basin.

A panel of specialists, including four international experts, concluded last year that the additional studies were needed to assess the dam’s impact on the Nile’s flow and the region. Ethiopia and other upstream African nations say that Egypt’s historic legal claims to a majority of the river’s flow are invalid and have harmed their development.

Last year’s panel also recommended measures to improve the dam’s stability. Ethiopian engineers informed Egyptian counterparts of updates to its design at a two-day meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, that finished yesterday, the Ethiopian ministry said. The discussions “enhanced confidence” between the three nations and there was no reason for Ethiopia to halt construction of the dam, Water, Energy and Irrigation Minister Alemayehu Tegenu said in the statement.

Ethiopia’s government says it’s completed 35 percent of the project that was officially launched in April 2011 and is scheduled for completion in mid-2017.