Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Vogon Today

Selected News from the Galaxy

StartMag

What is the role of China in the Gerd dam between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan

3 years ago babelfish

What is the role of China in the Gerd dam between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan

Giuseppe Gagliano's article on the Gerd dam which rises in Ethiopia and represents about 85% of the water that eventually flows through the Nile river downstream in Sudan and Egypt

When news broke on July 19 that the giant reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was filled with Blue Nile water, many Ethiopians were elated.

"Congratulations to Ethiopia and friends of Ethiopia," tweeted the country's water minister, Seleshi Bekele, describing the $ 5 billion dam as "a protective infrastructure asset for downstream countries," as well as a engineering triumph.

However, for Sudan and Egypt, the news was received with much less enthusiasm.

Indeed, both Cairo and Khartoum have loudly protested the dam , fearing it threatens their access to vital Nile River waters.

China, a major investor in all three countries, has the theoretical economic power to reconcile conflicts.

As we know the hydroelectric GERD is located on the Blue Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and accounts for about 85% of the water that eventually flows through the Nile River downstream into Sudan and Egypt.

The use of this water is currently regulated by two treaties, dated 1929 and 1959. According to these, almost the entire course of the Nile is assigned to Egypt, with a smaller quantity to Sudan and almost nothing to Ethiopia.

The use of these waters for GERD is vital, Ethiopia says, in its efforts to get out of poverty.
In fact, according to the most recent figures from the World Bank, about one fifth of the country's 109 million inhabitants still live on less than $ 1.90 a day.
The dam – slated to be Africa's largest once completed – will be able to generate around 6.45 gigawatts of electricity, powering both Ethiopia's national economy and that of its neighbors through electricity exports.

However, many millions of Egyptians – and increasingly Sudanese too – depend on Nile water for their livelihoods, with Cairo and Khartoum worried that the dam will cut off this supply, particularly in times of drought.

Recent years have therefore seen repeated efforts to negotiate a new water-sharing agreement between the three countries, under the African Union or the UN. The European Union also promised that it would seek a solution but its attempt at mediation turned out to be absolutely irrelevant and negligible.

All these efforts, however, failed to find a solution as the dam got closer and closer to completion.

While much of GERD's funding comes from public subscriptions and taxes on Ethiopians overseas, much has also come from foreign loans. In 2013, China advanced $ 1.3 billion to the country to build transmission lines from the dam. Chinese companies, such as China Gezhouba Group and Voith Hydro Shanghai, have also been involved in the construction of GERD.
Overall, China is also the largest source of foreign direct investment for Ethiopia, according to the United Nations, accounting for about 60% of all new foreign-funded projects in the country in 2019. in Sudan: China Harbor Engineering is behind the $ 141 million Belt and Road Initiative for the Red Sea port of Haidob , with additional Chinese investments in agriculture, mining and oil.

In Egypt, Chinese banks are financing about 85% of the new $ 3 billion administrative capital under construction outside Cairo, where the Chinese state-owned construction and engineering company is a major contractor.

Also in 2019, China recorded a record 7 billion dollars of investment in Egypt. This potentially provides China with great economic leverage with all participants in the GERD dispute. On the other hand, China has already intervened in the region. He was a key player in the 2015 negotiations that ended the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan , where China has major investments in the oil industry.

However, there are also some main reasons for China to remain cautious.

First, the aim of the negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia has always been to reach a satisfactory agreement on how much water each country should receive.
However, China has never signed a definitive water-sharing agreement with any downstream country. In fact, although many of Asia's most important rivers, such as the Mekong, Indus, Ganges and Irrawaddy arise in Tibet, China is one of only three countries in the world – along with Turkey and Burundi – that do not have never signed a 1997 UN Convention on River Water Sharing.

Secondly, the scale of Chinese investments in Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan also causes it to be more cautious. In order to overcome this stalemate, Senegal could play a very important role. Precisely in the light of this, Egypt intends to support Senegal's candidacy for the presidency of the African Union . Well, this partnership should not be surprising given that on July 9 a memorandum of understanding was signed between two nations for the creation of an Egyptian-Senegalese joint business Council , aimed at doubling the volume of bilateral trade, which stood at 67, $ 6 million in 2020 and is expected to exceed $ 200 million in the next three years. Starting from this very solid basis of relationship, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Dakar last April to discuss Gerd with President Macky Sall.

But in this delicate and complex diplomatic game, Sudan also plays its cards: in fact it intends to obtain the support of Senegal precisely for the question of the dam. It is no coincidence that Sudanese Foreign Minister Maryam al-Mahdi urged Sall to put pressure on Ethiopia to convince it to sign a binding agreement on dam management. But Ethiopia itself has also moved in this direction: the Ethiopian ambassador to Dakar, Melaku Legesse, met Sall on 4 July and the two sides discussed the GERD crisis.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/qual-e-il-ruolo-della-cina-nella-diga-gerd-tra-etiopia-egitto-e-sudan/ on Wed, 04 Aug 2021 07:26:16 +0000.