What is the Nile River dam project and why is it controversial?

CNN's Zain Asher explains the tensions between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over Ethiopia's Nile River dam project and speaks to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdokon about the controversy.

#CNN #News #CNNi

52 comments

    1. @ϥⲣⲁⲟⲛ its our natural resource and no amount of suicide bombs can change that.

  1. To talk about GERD dam with out Ethiopia’s presence is sham…Ethiopia contribute 85% river Nile ….we don’t need anyone’s permission to build a dam on our river. Period.

  2. Had the origin of the blue nile was in Sudan/Egypt, they would have starved us to death.PURE GREED!!!

    1. That’s you assuming..What we do know as fact is Ethiopia building a large reservoir which will siphon too much water that 2 other countries are very dependent on..

    2. @agnobayis enalemis My friend, Ethiopia is filling the dam in 5-7 years and only in rainy seasons so as to enable our downstream neighbours get near average flow.

  3. So if a country wants to make its own power for its people that is a bad thing from other countries?
    To me they are saying we are better than you so stay where you are.

    1. Egypt didn’t say the dam shouldn’t be built Egypt want the filling of the dam in 7 years so the Egypt sweat water supply wouldn’t be effected

    2. @menassie samuel There are 3 treaties between USA and Mexico for use of shared rivers including Colorado River and Rio Grande River. The water sharing treaties were signed in 1944 and revised in 2012. Get your facts right.
      You can’t compare what happened in the 1960-1970 with regard to the filling of Aswan dam to the current circumstances 50 yrs later. The populations of both countries has grown, while Ethiopia has several rivers, lakes and plenty rainfall Egypt only has the Nile and with very little rainfall. Water should be shared according to needs and resources and Ethiopia seems like a small child shouting that they have a right Not to Consult and Not to Share the Water because Egypt may have done the same thing half a century ago. We all need to grow up.
      It is a myth when you say Egypt doesn’t want Ethiopia to use it’s resources, yet Egypt after the initial misguided opposition to the dam came to fully accept and acknowledge Ethiopia’s right to build the dam and are been very reasonable in asking for a water sharing agreement.
      The ball is in Ethiopia’s court and the rest of Africa is watching and are getting tired of Ethiopia. After years of Africa supporting Ethiopia’s right to build the dam Africa doesn’t understand why Ethiopia doesn’t want to share those waters.

    3. @menassie samuel yh what Michael said was right tbh. Now that you mention Mexico, if you acc google “hoover dam Mexico”, you’ll find that even if they maybe didn’t have an agreement, water flow was still reduced substantially for Mexico unfortunately – from 1200 to 164 cubic metres per second, affecting the surrounding biodiversity and prosperity for farmers. To make matters worse, another dam along the same Colorado River called Moreno, was also built and thus further reduced the water flow from 164 to about 8 cubic metres per second. So yes, Egypt and Sudan’s worries are definitely justified, and just imagine the impact it would have on those two countries who aren’t even that well developed yet.

  4. You don’t even try to seem ” balanced’ by asking the other side of the story? Why Egypt is pushing Sudan to do its bidding now?

    1. But the other side has refused to talk and if the Ethiopian PM talks why should we believe him as he is a well known liar who lied saying there are no Eritrean troops in Tigray and then said not a single civilian has died in it’s security operations. Such a clown.

    1. @The King we are poor but we will rise up soon. Your comment shows you are uneducated and salty.😆

  5. More and more dam in Ethiopia for more than 200million east African who lack access to electricity.

    1. Why build a dam for electricity when you can get electricity from Solar Power?
      This is very suspicious. Ethiopia wants to control the water.
      If I was Sudan and Egypt, I’ll rain fire on Ethiopia.

    2. @Steven Lear aka mohammed Ousman of Egypt, you can advice Egypt to salination as you advice Ethiopia to solar.

  6. Its controversial because a black nation finally said “we will use our own resources”and although Egypt is lobbying against us all over the planet we will not stop. Sudan keeps flip flopping. There are multiple studies that proved the water supply of Egypt and Sudan will not be affected by Ethiopia. The west ist behind this conflict. You’d rather give ‘aid’ to African dictators to keep us down and take our resources. No more! We will use OUR water on OUR land.

    1. The studies showing there will be no effect were falsified.
      No one can predict the future.

    2. @William Springer sources? The Egyptian prime minister said it himself recently. Its just Sudan causing issues for no reason

  7. Dear CNN,
    Thank you for posting.
    Regarding the title of this video only.. 🙄
    That reminds me of what my dad used to say..
    Q: What did one beaver say to the “otter”?
    A: “We’re dammed if we do and we’re dammed if we don’t.”
    🌳 🐹🐿
    Have a blessed day. 🤗
    Inside Michigan, USA 🇺🇸
    P.S.
    Please queue the song:
    🎼🎤🎵🎶
    “The Dam at Otter Creek”
    Made famous by:
    Live
    Thank you.

  8. As an African who follow this issue with huge interest, both Egypt and Sudan know that the Ethiopians are only filling the dam during the rainy season (July-Sep)? beside it has been suggested by experts that Egypt can utilise their massive water reserve from Lake Nasser (which has 3 X the capacity of the Ethiopian dam) to make up the shortfall during the filling of the Ethiopian dam. At the same time Egypt should explore ways to minimise water wastage, water pollution , water recycling etc. In the long term I would also strongly suggest that Egypt to focus more on integrating it’s economy with African (specially Nile Basin countries) rather than focusing in the Middle East. For far too long Egypt has kept its distance from Africa hence why many African countries wouldn’t see Egypt in the same lenses as they see Ethiopia.
    If Egyptian politicians think military confrontation as a solution, then yes in the short term the Ethiopians might suffer as their project will be affected, but in the long term it will be Egypt & Sudan that will be highly damaged both politically and economically. I said politically, coz majority of African, including my country will be siding with Ethiopia and some wouldn’t even hesitate to offer military support because they agree with Ethiopia’s right to utilise her natural resources to elevate her citizens from poverty. Also I said Egypt will be impacted economically in the long term if she ever did attack Ethiopia. You might ask how? Well there is some article which I have read sometime ago and it details out if such scenario (attack on their dam) did ever happen, the government of Ethiopia without notifying Egypt and Sudan will resort to diverting all the smaller streams, and tributary rivers which feed into the Blue Nile in retaliation. This would have far more adverse effect than current dam which they are building. The only way to stop the Ethiopians from diverting the streams and tributary rivers is to send a send hundreds of thousands of ground troops and colonise Ethiopia and I can not see that happening! Therefore my advise to Egyptians, it is easy to start a war / military confrontation but Egypt won’t have control over the outcome. If Egypt choose to go down this path then I say good luck!! coz I know they will come out of it far worse. lol

    1. Deep and interesting tensions created by sharing a river. The only way to share a river effectively is cooperatively, perfect example of how nations must learn to be more constructive as our population exceeds global capacity.

    2. ​@Lost Pony Actually there is a Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) on the utilisation of Nile Waters and it was signed by 6 countries Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. But Egypt and Sudan refused to be part of that agreement because they wanted to keep their 1929 agreement (signed between Egypt and their colonial power Britain) and 1959 agreement (signed between Egypt and Sudan) instead. This left the Ethiopians very little choice but to go ahead with the construction of their dam on the Blue Nile. The previous Egyptian president (Mohammed Morsi) was caught on camera (unaware that it was being shown live on Egyptian TV) discussing in detail on the use of their military force to destroy the Ethiopian dam. The fact of the matter is that Egypt doesn’t want to share the Nile water with upstream countries like Ethiopia. They only want to monopolise the water resources to themselves which is unacceptable not only for Ethiopians but for the rest of Africans.

    3. @wondwosen negash your welcome bro. I stand in solidarity with your country. Coz no sovereign country would accept binding agreement (which would limit Ethiopia’s future utilisation of Nile Water) by Egypt & Sudan. US & EU shouldn’t meddle in this issue either coz Africans are capable of sorting out their differences amicably. But it should start with Egypt recognising the deep grievances and mistrust that exists towards her from the rest of Nile Basin countries due to the old agreements (1929 & 1959 agreements). The next step for Egypt is to accept the new reality that Ethiopia will be filling her dam and put it into use to generate much needed electricity that will boost the economy of the region as a whole.

    4. I have spoken to numerous egyptians in diff part of the world and they’ve told me they don’t consider themselves Africans hence that’s why they want to deal with middle east.

  9. They need to found out how they can just all benefit from the river without war it easy but hard due lack of humanity to each other money 💴 power is what it’s about 🤦🏽‍♂️

  10. We Ethiopians are serious as well when we say we will not sign any treaty that denies us future use of our own resources for our Nations development. Egypt and Sudan sponsor violence and killings in Ethiopia to force Ethiopia to sign a binding agreement (which will deny Ethiopia use of the Abay river.).

  11. Ethiopians have the right to use our natural resources in any way we see fit. #GERDismine

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.