Egypt/Ethiopia: Negotiations regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) concluded in Cairo on 28 August without reaching any tangible change in the Ethiopian position, Egypt’s irrigation ministry said in a statement. According to the statement, Egypt will continue to exert utmost efforts to reach an agreement on rules for filling and operating the dam (Bloomberg).
For context, the dam was constructed between 2011 and 2017. The filling of the dam with water from shared resource – the Nile River— has been a point of contention across Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. While a tripartite committee has existed to address these concerns, there has not been a fully amicable solution around the process of filling the dam.
Dam filling has taken place in phases, with the first three phases taking place in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. The fourth and final phase was postponed to later in 2023 to allow for sufficient time for the neighbouring countries to address some of their concerns.
