Aug. 28—Last April, a major event that will change the face of East Africa went unnoticed by European public opinion: the near completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the largest hydropower infrastructure in Africa. Specifics were given in an April 12 federal government economic review session in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, opened by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, reporting that the project was 98.66% complete, with six power units already operational, and the reservoir at capacity. An official inauguration was targeted for September.

The GERD will provide access to electricity to all Africans in Ethiopia and neighboring countries, and is also an example of how Europe and China can successfully cooperate in large development projects in Africa. The GERD, built by Italian, French, and Chinese companies, demonstrates that the “win-win” approach is not only possible, but can be a model to extend to other, transformative projects on the African continent, as the Schiller Institute proposed in a study presented at its international conference in Berlin July 12-13.

The European lack of attention to this project is inexplicable in view of its impact in ameliorating the number-one issue in politics these days: famine and poverty-driven, illegal immigration from Africa.

There was weak resonance with the achievements of GERD even in Italy, despite the fact that an Italian company has built the dam, and that the government has launched a so-called “Mattei Plan” to help create jobs in Africa. In October 2022, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced it as a new model of cooperation between Italy, African nations, and the European Union, in the spirit of Enrico Mattei (1906-1962), the famous Italian infrastructure developer.

It is hoped that the official inauguration and commissioning of the GERD, which may be held September 9, will draw more attention.

A Few Facts on the Project

The dam is in Ethiopia’s northwestern region of Benishangul-Gumuz, on the Blue Nile River, less than 20 km from the Sudanese border. With its 145-meter (475-foot) height, 1,780-meter (1-mile) length, and 74-billion-cubic-meter reservoir, it is the largest dam in Africa and the seventh-largest worldwide. It is also the most powerful hydroelectric dam on the continent, with its power generation capacity of more than 5,000 MW.

The dam as such has been designed and built by the Italian Webuild company, which had already built four major dams in Ethiopia: Legadadi Dam, Gilgel Gibe I, Gilgel Gibe II and Gilgel Gibe III. The project involves a main dam in roller-compacted concrete (RCC), with two power plants installed at the foot of the dam. The power plants are positioned on the right and left banks of the river and consist of 13 Francis turbines. The turbines have been built by the French Alstom company (later General Electric, when GE bought the Alstom Hydro unit), while the Chinese companies Sinohydro, the Gezhouba Group, Voith Hydro Shanghai, and the state-owned China International Water and Electricity Corporation have built the power lines. China has also partly financed the project.

The filling of the water reservoir was started in 2020 and accomplished gradually, parallel to the construction. The last phase of the filling was completed in October 2024. The turbines were also installed in phases: two turbines (of 375 MW each) were commissioned by August 2022; two 400-MW turbines were added in August 2024, and, as of April this year, a total of six turbines are operational, generating roughly 1.5 GW. When all of the 13 turbines are operational (two 375-MW and eleven 400-MW ones), the full operational capacity of GERD of 5,150 MW (5.15 GW) will be reached.

From a Power Consumer to a Power Exporter

Thanks to GERD, Ethiopia will not only satisfy its growing electricity demand, providing access to 100% of its population (currently, more than 66% of Ethiopia’s 115 million citizens lack power), but it will also export power to its neighbors, in particular Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea, and Somalia, greatly alleviating their energy situation. In those countries, access to electricity is lower than the African average of 50%: in Sudan, only 25-39% have access; in Somalia, only 33-50%.

Reliable and affordable power will support both rural and urban development, accelerate industrialization, attract investment, and increase employment—even boosting capital stock and unskilled labor returns. The reservoir has double to triple the volume of Ethiopia’s largest natural lake, Lake Tana to the east, possibly enabling up to 7,000 tons of annual fish harvests, and also development of tourism.

Moreover, the countries downstream on the Nile River, Sudan and Egypt, will benefit from the function of the dam to regulate water flow.

Since the Ethiopian government will use the dam only to produce electricity, the water flow won’t be interrupted, and in the end, even more water will reach Egypt. In fact, GERD’s regulation will serve to prevent the flooding in Sudan that occurs every year in the rainy season, where, in addition to flood damage, a lot of water evaporates and is lost. GERD will collect water in the reservoir during the small (March-June) and heavy (July-October) rainy seasons, releasing water in the dry season (from November to March).

With no more flooding in Sudan, there will be clear benefits for agriculture. In Egypt, Lake Nasser will not suffer from loss of water; on the contrary, it will receive an extra volume of flow equivalent to that which, until now, has been lost through flooding and evaporation upstream.

Thus, the completion of the GERD will offer new opportunities for potential cooperation between Ethiopia and Egypt in Sudan, historically all having expressed great interest in constructing the Jonglei Canal on the White Nile—now in South Sudan, an infrastructure project that would increase the overall water availability for all in the giant Nile Basin.

West Stirs Discord

In light of the benefits, it is not understandable why the dispute between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over GERD is not over but has recently been rekindled. The decades-long dispute seemed settled when in 2015 the three countries’ foreign ministers met in Khartoum and reached a preliminary agreement called the “Declaration of Principles” (DoP). The DoP included ten basic principles expressing a willingness for cooperation in understanding downstream and upstream water needs.

However, as Ethiopia started to fill the reservoir in 2020, suddenly Cairo accused Addis Ababa of “unilateral action.” The Egyptian government was sincerely concerned that, during the filling period, water coming downstream would not be enough to secure its needs. The concern was motivated by the Ethiopian government decision to fill the reservoir in five years, instead of the originally planned ten.

A complication was that Egypt involved the U.S. government and the World Bank in the attempt to settle the dispute. The result was a draft agreement that Ethiopia refused to sign, saying that it undermined its sovereignty. Although the text of the draft agreement has never been published, it is not wrong to suspect that the World Bank included the usual environmental constraints that would delay or jeopardize the project.

International environmental organizations, behind which former colonial powers notoriously hide, had tried already to stop the construction of GERD. In 2014, the International Rivers Network (IRN) issued a statement demanding that construction be stopped, claiming that “the project is proceeding on an aggressively accelerated schedule with little room for adjusting key elements of dam design to reduce harm or prevent problems,” as reported by Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram. IRN was founded by David Brower, who had previously created Friends of the Earth, after being executive director of the American Sierra Club, which he turned into a radical environmental organization.

As a matter of fact, despite its concerns, Egypt never complained during the filling that not enough water was coming. Whatever concerns Egypt and Sudan may have for what they have called unilateral action on the part of Ethiopia, there is no reason to continue a dispute on this level, now that GERD has been filled. In the coming months and years, the expected benefits of the dam for the downstream countries should become visible. A 2020 study suggested that Sudan’s accumulated GDP gains from the steady-state operation of the GERD (2020-2060) would range between USD 27 billion and USD 29 billion, in comparison with a baseline without the GERD.

A 50-Year Dream Comes True

The idea of the GERD is over fifty years old. Emperor Haile Selassie, who had a vision to modernize Ethiopia, turned to the United States for a study of the Blue Nile. He commissioned the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which proposed a massive dam at the Guba site, near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border, in 1964, with the potential of generating significant hydroelectric power and supporting irrigation. Due to financial constraints, but also to Egypt’s opposition, Haile Selassie put the plan in the drawer. It was revived by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (1995-2012), who in 2011 announced an ambitious project based on a modified version of the 1964 U.S. design.

Zenawi also set up an ingenious scheme for financing the dam, excluding all foreign aid (IMF, World Bank, private banks), except that from China. In the end, 80% of the construction was financed domestically and 20% by China. Sources of domestic credit included a combination of budget allocations, domestic and diaspora bond sales, taxes, and a singular contribution by civil servants, who donated one month’s salary for several years. The Exim Bank of China provided about USD 1.8 billion in loans, which went mainly to the electromechanical works, supplied and installed by Voith Hydro Shanghai (a Chinese subsidiary of the German company Voith) and high-voltage transmission lines (several 500-kV lines to Sudan, Djibouti, and Kenya).

Following Zenawi’s death, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn inherited the GERD and carried it forward, as did his successor, the current Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed.

The story of GERD would not be complete without highlighting the role of Simegnew Bekele, the chief engineer and project manager of GERD, who played a pivotal role in Ethiopia’s ambitious hydropower developments and was widely regarded as the public face of the GERD project. Tragically, he was found dead in his vehicle, from a bullet wound, in the center of Addis Ababa, on July 26, 2018, the day he was scheduled to hold a press conference on the advancement stage of the dam. Although the investigation concluded that it was a suicide, his death sparked protests and doubts.

Model for China-Europe-Africa Collaboration

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a success story of Europe-China-Africa cooperation in helping independent African nations in pursuing their development goals. The lesson to be drawn from this success is that its model can be replicated throughout the continent, for instance, to build the Transaqua project for water transfer from the Congo Basin to the Chad Basin. Transaqua, similar to GERD, has been around for more than 50 years. The challenge of Transaqua is not the dimensions of the dams, because they will be smaller in size, but the number of dams: almost 30 on the right-side tributaries of the Congo River.

Like the GERD, Transaqua has been opposed by environmentalist organizations and former colonial powers. But it was adopted by all member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Committee in 2018, thanks to the key role played by the Schiller Institute.

Transaqua, together with the Grand Inga complex on the lower Congo River, and other energy and transport projects, is included in the priorities listed by the Schiller Institute July 2005 draft report on Europe-China-Africa tripartite cooperation. It is time that European governments break with the suicidal “decoupling” or “de-risking” from China, and join hands in developing together the African continent.