On 9 September 2025, Ethiopia officially inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. Costing about US$5 billion and producing up to 5,150 megawatts of electricity, the GERD is Africa’s largest hydroelectric plant and among the world’s twenty biggest. The project doubles Ethiopia’s generation capacity, holds a reservoir of 64 billion cubic metres, and is expected to provide energy to millions of people.
But the GERD is more than an engineering feat. It embodies a paradox of modern development: a renewable energy project celebrated as a national triumph and a beacon of climate-friendly growth, but one whose benefits are unevenly distributed and whose existence deepens geopolitical fault lines.
For Ethiopia, it is the crowning achievement of a generation. For Egypt, it is an existential threat. For Sudan, it is both a promise and a risk. And for Africa as a whole, it is a test case: can an African nation turn national pride into continental benefit?
When construction began in 2011, Ethiopia was mired in ethnic divisions and recurring conflict. Yet the GERD became a rare unifying symbol. Around 91 percent of its funding came from the state budget, complemented by bond purchases and voluntary contributions from citizens and diaspora communities.
This unusual financing model gave the dam the aura of a collective project. Ethiopians were repeatedly asked to donate or buy government bonds, transforming the dam into a monument of resilience and self-reliance. Analysts said the sense of shared ownership turned the GERD into more than concrete and steel: a national rallying point.
For Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the dam is the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s “renaissance narrative” – proof that the country can build world-class infrastructure without relying on external loans or donors.
The GERD’s installed capacity of 5,150 MW is a dramatic leap forward. As recently as 2022, only 55 percent of Ethiopians had access to electricity, according to the World Bank. Rural areas lagged far behind, with millions of households relying on wood or kerosene. The GERD promises to change that equation, potentially lifting millions into the modern energy economy.
But the paradox emerges here: while the energy is being produced, the transmission network to deliver it is underdeveloped. Urban Ethiopia already has high rates of electrification, but rural regions remain poorly connected. Without massive investment in grids and distribution, much of the dam’s output risks remaining “power on paper”.
This gap matters for Ethiopia’s broader ambitions. The government plans to export electricity to Kenya, Djibouti and Sudan, with longer-term visions of linking to Middle Eastern markets via undersea cables across the Red Sea. Yet exports depend not just on generation, but on infrastructure and cooperation agreements – areas where progress has been slow.
The GERD is thus both an immense achievement and an unfinished project: energy has been created, but its fruition remains uncertain.
Downstream, the GERD is seen not as triumph but as threat. Egypt, a country of 108 million people, relies on the Nile for about 90 percent of its freshwater. Nearly the entire population lives along the river valley, where agriculture and industry depend on a steady flow.
Egyptian officials warn that the GERD’s vast reservoir – larger than the annual allocation of water Egypt receives – could worsen droughts and lead to “water poverty”. Cairo has opposed the dam since its inception, arguing that it violates treaties dating to the early 20th century and undermines Egypt’s “historic rights”.
For nearly a century, Egypt enjoyed a privileged position on the Nile, underpinned by colonial-era treaties brokered by Britain in the 1920s. These guaranteed Cairo the majority of the river’s waters and granted it veto power over upstream projects.
It has repeatedly appealed to the United Nations Security Council, calling the dam a violation of international law and describing it as an “existential threat”.
In official statements, Egypt insists it reserves the right to defend its water security by “all appropriate measures”. Although Cairo has stopped short of direct confrontation, it has deepened ties with Ethiopia’s rivals in the Horn of Africa and pursued massive water infrastructure projects at home, including the world’s largest water treatment plant and the drilling of thousands of wells. But none of these reduce the fundamental dependence on the Nile – and the GERD sits squarely upstream.
Sudan’s stance has been more ambiguous. On one hand, Khartoum echoes Egypt’s calls for a legally binding agreement on how Ethiopia fills and operates the dam. On the other, Sudan sees real benefits: access to cheaper electricity, more regulated flows and reduced flood damage.
This ambivalence reflects Sudan’s intermediate position, geographically and politically. The GERD could help stabilise the Nile’s seasonal rhythms, but it could also place Sudan in a vulnerable position if Ethiopia manages the dam unilaterally. Analysts at International Crisis Group note that Sudan is caught between recognising the dam’s utility and fearing its risks.
Ethiopia began filling the GERD’s reservoir in 2020, doing so gradually during rainy seasons. Independent research shows no major disruptions downstream so far, thanks to favourable rainfall and cautious filling. Yet the true test will come in drought years, when Ethiopia may prioritise energy generation over downstream flows.
Here lies the “green paradox”: a project designed to produce clean, renewable energy – vital in an era of climate change – could simultaneously undermine water security for millions.
While Abiy frames the dam as a “green solution”, critics argue that it may create new forms of insecurity. Human Rights Watch has raised concerns about the displacement of local communities and ecological impacts. Egyptian scholars warn of seismic risks from storing such a vast volume of water in a tectonically active rift zone.
The GERD also marks a geopolitical turning point. By completing the GERD, Ethiopia has effectively buried the colonial-era treaties. This shift is about more than water: it signals Ethiopia’s arrival as a regional power, using infrastructure not just for development but for strategic leverage. The GERD is thus both an energy plant and a political statement.
Ultimately, the GERD is a test case for Africa’s future. It shows that an African nation can mobilise domestic resources, build monumental infrastructure and pursue renewable energy at scale. It also reveals the risks of doing so without robust frameworks for regional cooperation. An arrangement is already in place in the form of the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement, also known as the Entebbe Agreement, which aims to establish a basin-wide legal framework for the equitable utilization and sustainable management of Nile waters. This treaty has already been signed and ratified by Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan, although Egypt and Sudan have not yet ratified it.
If Ethiopia can expand its transmission networks and forge equitable power-sharing agreements, the GERD could become a continental asset, delivering electricity to neighbours and symbolising Africa’s rise in the renewable energy era. If not, it risks becoming a monument to missed opportunities: energy that exists but is not fully used, and pride that deepens regional rifts.
This article was originally published in 360info under Creative Commons 4.0 International. Read the original article.(NS)
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