“New war looms over Nile water” is the headline on an article reporting on the development of 1,000 Egyptian soldiers into war-torn Somalia, as tension between Ethiopia and Egypt ratchets up over Ethiopia’s use of the river Nile for its giant hydro-electric dam – the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD. “Egyptian officials announced their plans for the military exercise one day after their September 1 warning about Ethiopia’s GERD [dam] activity.”
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed warned on Sunday that his country would “humiliate” any nation that threatens its sovereignty, as tensions spiral in the volatile Horn of Africa. “We will not be touched! However, we will humiliate anyone who dares to threaten us in order to dissuade them,” Abiy said at a Sovereignty Day ceremony in the capital Addis Ababa.
Tensions have been rising for years, as Egypt complains that Ethiopia is “stealing” Nile water that was guaranteed to it by treaty. Ethiopia responds that it was no signatory of the colonial era treaties, and in any case GERD is a hydroelectric dam which only uses the water for its turbines before sending it along the Nile.
Why is Egypt so worried?
The BBC carried an excellent article explaining Cairo’s concerns in September 2023.
It pointed out – correctly – that Egypt relies almost totally on the Nile for its water needs: next to no rain falls on the country. It also relies on the river for its agriculture.
“Ethiopia’s unilateral measures are considered a disregard for the interests and rights of the downstream countries and their water security,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said, external.
It has argued that a 2% reduction in water from the Nile could result in the loss of 200,000 acres of irrigated land.
Egypt is also concerned that in times of drought, Ethiopia might fill the reservoir behind its dam with water, to increase its generating capacity, instead of letting it flow downstream.
“There is no agreement on how Gerd should be managed during and following periods of drought,” says Mohammed Basheer of the University of Toronto. “Without an agreement, Ethiopia might adopt an approach that maximizes electricity generation following droughts, by first recovering storage, which would be unfavourable for Egypt.”
Ethiopia filled the dam over the course of three years, dismissing Egypt’s argument that it should take 12 to 21 years as unacceptable.
This is only one side of the story
In 2021 I carried an article laying the problem out in greater detail.
Egypt’s ambitious agricultural schemes
If Egypt was just using the Nile to provide its people with drinking water (and was doing something to control the growth rate of its population of 102 million) that would be one thing. If Egypt was trying to simply continue irrigating its traditional farms along the Nile and in the Nile delta that would be a need Ethiopians should be sympathetic towards.
But it is not.
Little is said about Egypt’s plans to increase its agricultural production far from its traditional farmlands.
The Aswan High Dam or Nasser Dam already irrigates large areas of the desert in the Toshka depression.
Watering the Sinai
The Sahara is not the only area that Egypt wishes to expand its agriculture into. In 2019 it was reported that:
“Tens of thousands of cubic metres of Nile and treated water are being pumped into Northern Sinai for farmland irrigation, part of an Egyptian national plan for development in the region, the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation said.
The ministry said the water delivery aims to create farming communities, increase cultivable space and attract agricultural investments.
Water delivery to North Sinai is an old Egyptian dream. The idea of pumping Nile River water into Sinai emerged in the late 1970s after Egypt made peace with Israel.
In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat ordered a canal dug to carry water from the Damietta branch of the Nile, near Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, into Sinai. Water flowed into the canal and then into Sinai in 2001.
The Sheikh Jaber al-Sabah Canal was created to move water from the western Sinai to North Sinai. The canal siphons water into a major plant in Bir al-Abd, which distributes the water to farmland across North Sinai.”
The idea of watering the Sinai with the Nile water goes back decades. In 1981 Egypt announced:
The current plans of the Egyptian government call for a massive expansion of irrigated land, approximately 1.8 million additional hectares by the year 2000. The Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation presently intends to construct the Salaam, or Peace, Canal for the delivery of Nile water to the new reclamation areas in the Eastern Delta and Sinai.
In recent years Egypt’s President el-Sisi has gone further. He has ambitious plans to increase the irrigation in the Sinai. Ethiopians need to pay attention.
Egypt’s Sisi directs government to increase agricultural plots in central, northern Sinai
Mon, 26 Apr 2021 – 06:45 GMT
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi meets with the Cabinet on April 26, 2021- press photo
CAIRO – 26 April 2021: President Abdel Fattah directed the government to increase agricultural land plots in central and northern Sinai, said the Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Radi in a statement on Monday.
In a cabinet meeting, the President was briefed on the national project for agriculture and land reclamation in central and north Sinai, within the framework of the State’s comprehensive strategy to expand integrated agriculture and land reclamation at the level of the Republic, Radi added.
“These efforts are exerted in complementarity with other similar projects, especially in the New Delta in northwest of the country, Toshka and East Owainat in the South Valley,” Radi continued.
“The President also directed that the latest equipment and machinery be provided to reclaim the targeted lands in Sinai, explore the best agricultural activities, and apply the cutting-edge irrigation methods to make optimum economic use of water and double production in quantity and quality,” he said.
The spokesperson said that the inventory and study of data on the surveying and nature of the soil were further highlighted, alongside the achievement rates already made in the previously-allocated lands.
Ethiopia’s needs
The Egyptians have every right to use the water that they have; what they cannot do is to expand their agricultural sector while denying Ethiopia’s its right to use the water that rises on its soil. The Blue Nile rises in Ethiopia and by constructing the GERD dam Ethiopians have simply used its waters to generate electricity. The dam itself is close to the Sudanese border, but its water is not used for agricultural purposes.
What Egyptians are effectively arguing for is that Ethiopia should halt its development plans, leaving its people without the light or power they need.
As the BBC reported: “Ethiopia wants the dam to produce electricity for the 60% of its population, who currently have no supply.
It is hoped this will eventually double Ethiopia’s electricity output, provide businesses with constant electricity supplies and boost development.
It could also provide electricity for neighbouring countries including Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti and Eritrea.”
This is something Egypt has no legitimate right to deny.
Martin Plaut 
Discussion is only best practice. Not so long ago Uganda suffered from an overflow of Lake Victoria. No one came to our aid to bring in some ideas.
White Nile Waters can be managed and harnessed to benefit all Nile Basin countries.
Egypt should not live in the past. Arrogance, entitlement, and inconsideration are not good behaviors.
Personally, I don’t see any reason why Egypt should be willing to control every country along the Nile Basin regions on what they should do with the Nile waters. What if the gods of the rain do not send rain for the next 50 years and the Nile is dried up. Where will they get the so called Nile waters to be shouting about.
Egypt is just a proud flock within the region. They don’t have any basic right to the Nile. Maybe the god of creation just wanted to make Egypt a barren land with no rainfall, why should they be yearning for the blessings of other States. It is either they resort to begging or altogether they will loose everything with time. Ethiopians need electricity and they are using what they have to get it. Let Egyptians use Mediterranean sea to irrigate their farmlands.
Egyptians aren’t the one urinating the Nile water in the upland states that they want to control how it is being used. Let them wait for whatever portion of the Nile waters that reaches them.
this an incomplete reasoning. Neighbors should negotiate what is fruitful for everyone. Ethiopian government has the obligation to provide for it’s people and supply them with electricity and improve their quality of life. The same applies to the Egyptian government who has to provide water and food to it’s people. The main real objection of the Ethiopian government to any negotiations has nothing to do with these as both sides can technically reach a win-win situation and can help each other in infrastructure and agriculture. The objection is purely political driven by regional countries to hinder the development efforts in the Sinai and prevent it being populated in a wider geopolitical scheme which is quite obvious.
Things must be named as they really are.
Thanks Martin to expose the greed of Egypt. It’s beyond the imagination of any rational being. God will punish them for this act.
I don’t know why Egyptian government likes to argue about the dam back and forth. Let me assure you no water is remaining after the dam water is used to generate electricity. I hope Egyptian intellectual and specialist on the field are aware.Please use your energy and idea to develop something new ,helpful for all of us and helping to irrigate Senai.
The article pretty much speaks Ethiopia’s reasoning.
Instead of mentioning that Egypt has one of the lowest rainfall amounts in the world, while Ethiopia gets annually around 940 billion m3, and instead of mentioning that Ethiopia does not want to commit to any water amount to be released to Egypt and Sudan, and instead of mentioning the local rhetoric repeated over and over in Ethiopia about Ethiopia has risen, and Egypt should accept reality and stop talking about historic rights .. etc
Mr Plaut has sided with Ethiopia, so it can generate electricity, not mentioning the so many ways Ethiopia could have used to generate electricity with much faster return than hydropower, e.g. wind power.
Almost 13 years so far, and nothing has been generated from GERD, only tension with Sudan and Egypt ..
Egypt did not ask for more than what it normally gets, which is about 55 Billion cubic m3, Ethiopia does not even want to commit that.
Egypt should stop farming to please Ethiopia and mr Plaut, and Egyptians should stop converting desert to farms to please Ethiopia, because Ethiopia thinks that Nile water is their’s only ..
The Nile has been flowing since the earth has existed, civilzations have flourished for thousands of years around the river, 150 million people in Egypt and Sudan rely on it as the main source of water, lets cancel this to please Ethiopia and mr Plaut.
Simply put, Ethiopia is committing a crime, and mr Plaut, I hate to say, is trying hard to advocate a criminal in committing a crime.
Egypt government arrogance to demand to manage the Ethiopian GERD. On the contrary Ethiopian government has no right to demand how Egyptian Aswan Dam is being used. Egypt government claims it has the sole right to use the Blue Nile river based on the contract or agreement Egypt signed with the British government both in 1929 & 1959. The Blue Nile belongs to Ethiopia and yet it was not part of the contract or the agreement then. Ethiopia has no intention stopping the Blue Nile river entirely from flowing. Ethiopian government respect & adhere to the international low in using the Blue Nile river. However Ethiopian government clearly informed the Egyptian government both through diplomatic channels and medias that it does not want Egyptian government meddling in the internal affairs of Ethiopian government how it should manage the Blue Nile river water. Egyptian government need to stop giving commands to a sovereign Ethiopian government. The best solutions is not war instead dialog.