Egypt and Ethiopia have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over the filling of a major dam in Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia.
The agreement was signed by the President of Egypt Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during discussions held in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, on Thursday.
The talks about the dam arose during a summit organised to seek solutions to the ongoing war in Sudan.
El-Sisi and Ahmed have agreed to finalise an agreement on how Ethiopia would be refilling its 74 billion cubic-metre dam, which has caused the intercountry conflict.
“They (El-Sisi and Ahmed) will do all the necessary efforts to finalise the agreement in four months,” the two governments said in a joint statement.
Averting ‘significant harm’
Ethiopia has also committed to phased refilling of the high capacity dam in the 2023-2024 period so as “not to cause significant harm to Egypt and Sudan.”
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), whose construction began in 2011 and is almost complete, draws its water from the Nile River, a key resource shared with Sudan and Egypt.
The Nile is Egypt’s main source of freshwater, providing 56.8 billion cubic metres of fresh water annually. This represents 93% of the North African nation’s water needs, according to government records.
The Nile also provides 18.5 billion cubic metres of water yearly to Sudan, representing 77% of the country’s fresh water needs.
The Nile is the longest river in the world, stretching some 6,695 kilometres from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea. It also covers an area of at least 3,349,000 square kilometres.
Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signed past treaties allocating volumes of water for the respective countries’ use.
