(ማስታወቂያ)
On March 30, 2011, the Grand Renaissance Dam project, also known by the abbreviation GERD, was made public and since then it has been the cause of strong unity among the Ethiopian people amidst major instabilities. It is an Ethiopian gravity dam on the Abay (Blue Nile) River with the principal objective of generating electricity to alleviate Ethiopia's acute energy need and also to export electricity to neighboring countries. The project was called The Millennium dam, associated with the 2nd Ethiopian Millennium which was celebrated just 3 years prior to the project’s announcement. Before that, it was referred to as “Project-X”. On 15 April 2011, the Council of Ministers renamed it The Grand Renaissance Dam. The project was initially conceived and triggered during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. Between 1956 and 1964 the site survey for selecting a suitable location along the River Abay for the dam construction was carried out by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). But due to the 1974 coup d'état and civil war that followed it and lasted almost 2 decades, the GERD project stayed on hold. In October 2009 and August 2010, the Ethiopian government surveyed the location and in November 2010, a design for the dam was submitted by James Kelston. On March 21, 2011, Salini Impregilo, an Italian company, was handed a $4.8 billion contract for the project without competitive bidding. Located in Ethiopia's Benishangul-Gumuz Region, some 45 kilometers east of the border with Sudan, GERD has been under construction since 2011. And On 20 February 2022, the dam produced electricity for the first time, and is delivering it to the grid at a rate of 375 MW.
Let’s look at 5 important facts about the GERD project that everyone should know
As was mentioned above, the Grand renaissance dam of Ethiopia was initially conceived and triggered during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. Between 1956 and 1964 the site survey for selecting a suitable location along the River Abay for the dam construction was carried out by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and the site for the dam was selected.
If not for the 1974 coup d'état and the 17 years long civil war that followed the coup d’état, the GERD would probably have been constructed decades ago. The construction of the dam was started in 2011 and it was only supposed to take 5 years. But due to corruption and attempts by foreign forces like Egypt to sabotage the project the construction is still going on after 11 years. Thankfully now more than 95% of the construction is completed and the third filling was completed on the 12th of August 2022. On 20 February 2022, the dam produced electricity for the first time.
Estimated to cost close to 5 billion US dollars the GERD is a mega project that is difficult to finance by a developing country like Ethiopia. But difficult never meant impossible for Ethiopians, and they have proven this time and time over again. The GERD was just another indication of the courage and patriotism of the Ethiopian people. The dam was financed solely through crowdfunding by the Ethiopian people themselves through bond selling and other means because foreign financing was impossible to get as Egypt actively worked on preventing the construction of the dam from happening. This massive project carries a lot of hope for the Ethiopian and African people as it symbolizes what Africans are capable of, if they just focused on improving the lives of their people without being dependent on foreign Aid. Ethiopians hold this project close to their heart.
The Nile River runs through eastern Africa from south to north. It originates in the rivers that flow into Lake Victoria in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, and empties into the Mediterranean Sea 6,600 kilometers (4,100 miles) to the north, making it one of the world's longest rivers. Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, and South Sudan are the 11 African countries that share the Nile. Egypt, which is located over 2,500 kilometers downstream of the GERD location, opposes the dam's construction, claiming that it will restrict the amount of water available from the Nile. Ethiopia declared in May 2011 that it will share the dam’s blueprints with Egypt so that the downstream impact could be studied. A tripartite Egypt-Sudan-Ethiopia experts panel was organized to study the impact of the dam and in 2013, the 10-member team, which included four international experts, delivered its report to the governments. According to Ethiopia's Ministry of Water and Energy, the researchers determined that the dam "would not have a significant impact" on either Sudan or Egypt. And this has been confirmed not only on paper but in reality too, after the project is almost finished no downstream country has observed any reduction in the amount of water flowing. Despite this result, Egypt’s insisted nagging and propaganda to stop the construction of the dam continued, even though it was not successful.
1,800 m long, 145 m high, and with a total volume of 74,000 million m³ upon its completion, the GERD will become the biggest dam in Africa. And its reservoir which began filling in July of 2020 will become one of the largest in the continent with a size three times of Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia. The reservoir is expected to have a volume of 74km3. Once it starts generating power at its full capacity, the GERD is expected to double the country’s electric output. The dam will also be on top of the 20 list of largest dams in the world.
The artificial lake will have around 70 islands, which has already started attracting investors in the hospitality sector. Investors contacted by ENA stated that they intend to invest in the hotel and tourism sectors after the dam is completed. In addition to that, Fishing is a much-anticipated sector to provide massive business opportunities. Thank you for reading . . . Let me know in the comments below if there is another fact you would like the world to know about GERD!
