Ethiopia Set to Inaugurate Grand Renaissance Dam Amid Regional Tensions

Ethiopia will on Tuesday inaugurate the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Africa’s largest hydroelectric project, hailed at home as a transformative leap for the energy sector but feared abroad as a threat to regional water security.

Standing 145 metres tall and spanning nearly two kilometres across the Blue Nile near Sudan, the $4 billion dam is built to hold 74 billion cubic metres of water and generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity — more than doubling Ethiopia’s current output.

For Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who attended a lavish pre-launch ceremony featuring lasers, lanterns, and drones on Monday night, the GERD has become both a political legacy project and a symbol of national unity in a country grappling with internal conflict. Nearly half of Ethiopia’s 130 million citizens still lack electricity, and frequent blackouts in Addis Ababa force businesses to rely on costly generators. Analysts say the dam could power economic transformation, expand industrial production, and export electricity to neighbouring states as far as Tanzania.

But Egypt, which depends on the Nile for 97 percent of its water, has branded the project an “existential threat.” President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed not to compromise on the country’s water security, warning last month: “Whoever thinks Egypt will turn a blind eye to its water rights is mistaken.” Sudan has also voiced concern over reduced water flows.

A decade of mediation efforts by the US, World Bank, Russia, the UAE, and the African Union has failed to break the deadlock. Analysts argue Ethiopia’s government has also used the dam’s geopolitical tensions to rally support at home, portraying GERD as a unifying national struggle despite mounting domestic challenges.