· Stalemate over the Renaissance dam continues among Ethiopia, Sudan and Ethiopia
· The water and energy ministers from the three countries will now meet in Washington D.C in the next few days to report on the progress they made so far.
The stalemate over Ethiopia’s ambitious Renaissance dam across River Nile is persisting even after four rounds of talks between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, the stakeholders of the project. The US also has agreed to intermediate to find a solution to the issue and the first round of talks took place in Washington DC, which was monitored by US President Donald Trump. Very recently, there was another round of talk among the three countries, which also failed to arrive at an acceptable solution.
The US$4.6 billion dam that Ethiopia is built along the Nile River, which flows into Sudan and Egypt has been the center of controversy for quite some time. The Ethiopian side revealed that in the latest dialogue, the three countries could narrow down the differences including that of drought mitigation strategy. However, the Egyptian delegation came up with a new formula for the dam in the filling process and asked Ethiopia to extend the time it takes to fill the dam from 12 years to 21 years. This proposal was not acceptable to Ethiopia. The stiff stand taken by Egypt, the Ethiopian side apprehends would further delay the implementation of the project and feels that the new matrix put forward by Egypt is to delay the project for one reason or the other.
However, Ethiopia is determined to go ahead with the project as scheduled and would start filling the dam in July 2020 at the start of the country’s rainy season. The water and energy ministers from the three countries will now meet in Washington D.C in the next few days to report on the progress they made so far. It may be recalled that the United States and The World Bank are observers to the talks.
