Hydropolitics along the Nile

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog! This entry is going to be about a very complex and conflictual topic: the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). It will be the first of the three posts I will write about the GERD. It will focus on what exactly is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and what it could bring to Ethiopia. Map of the Nile with its dams ( Il Nodo di Gordio 2020 ) The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is located in the North of Ethiopia, close to the border with Sudan, on the Blue Nile. This section of the Nile meets with the White Nile in Khartoum and supplies roughly 80% of the Nile water ( Wikipedia ). Ethiopia unilaterally started the construction of the dam in 2011. The project is older but the required capacities (political, diplomatic, institutional, technical, and economic) were lacking ( Arsano 2007 ). It is the largest dam ever constructed on the Blue Nile. It’s hydroelectric power generates around 16,000 GW/year, which is enough to provide electricity

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog on the hydropolitics along the Nile. In this entry, I will discuss Wendy Barnaby’s essay: ‘Do nations go to war over water?’ ( Barnaby 2009 ). I chose to start my blog entries with this because I believe that it cleverly addresses some of the popular misconceptions around the politics of water. In my introduction to the blog, I explored some of the discourses surrounding Africa ( Wainaina 2019 ). I therefore find it suiting that I follow up with discourses about water, and more specifically ‘water wars’. 'Countries do not go to war overwater, they solve their water shortages through trade and international agreements.' ( Barnaby 2009, 282 ) Between 1948 and 1999, Barnaby counted 1,831 events whereby water was at the centre of the interaction ( Barnaby 2009 ). Howevere, none of them ended in a war. Indeed, 67% were solved peacefully through cooperation, and 28% of them were conflictive but with no declaration of war involved ( Barnaby