The foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan met yesterday to discuss the giant dam on the Nile. The consultations in Kinshasa are the “last chance” for the three countries to come to an agreement, said the Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri before the talks began in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This opportunity must be seized, he told Egyptian media.
With an annual output of 6,000 megawatts, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam is set to become Africa’s largest hydroelectric power station. Construction of the 1.8 kilometer long and 145 meter high dam began in 2011. In the meantime, Ethiopia has started flooding the huge reservoir, and the dam is due to be fully operational in 2023.
However, the project has been causing trouble among neighbors for years: Egypt and Sudan, both of which are located downstream, fear for their water supply. With more than a hundred million inhabitants, Egypt is almost entirely dependent on the water from the Nile.
