Since the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in April 2011, Egypt has considered the project a threat to its water, and thus national, security. More recently, official sources have tried to emphasize the economic costs of the dam and its unilateral filling and operation. According to these sources, a decrease of only 1 billion cubic meters of Nile waters flowing to Egypt would lead to 290,000 people losing their jobs, the degradation of 130,000 hectares, an increase worth USD150million in food imports, and a loss of USD430 million of agricultural production (UN Security Council, 2020). This commentary argues that these rough numbers do not sufficiently capture the potential impacts of this gigantic project on Egypt&rsquo;s human security. Research agendas, media reports and government policies need to focus more clearly on the social and human costs of the GERD and the associated implications, including the change in crop patterns and increasing salinization of agricultural lands.&nbsp;
<h3>Discourses on GERD: The missing social and human effects</h3>
Over the last decade, the dispute over the GERD has attracted considerable attention in policy, media and academic circles. The optimism which followed the signing of the Declaration of Principles (DoP) in March 2015 has faded away with consecutive deadlocks in the negotiations over conducting the required studies on the dam&rsquo;s impacts on downstream Sudan and Egypt, and agreeing on its filling and operation. These deadlocks, coupled with Ethiopia&rsquo;s unilateral filling of the GERD since July 2020, have given rise to alarmist discourses in Egypt and internationally, especially at policy and media levels. In its first letter to the UN Security Council in May 2020, Egypt stressed that the unilateral filling and operation of the dam is a threat to regional and international peace and security and an Ethiopian breach of its legal obligations that would cause &ldquo;significant harm to downstream communities&rdquo;, jeopardizing the water and food security and the very existence of 100 million Egyptians dependent on the Nile. In the aide memoire annexed to the letter, Egypt further explained this threat by listing the impacts of the dam&rsquo;s unliteral filling and operation on jobs, food imports and agricultural production cited above. Politically, Egypt argued that accepting the Ethiopian suggestion of signing guidelines that can be changed by the Ethiopian government, and that cover the filling period only would mean allowing it to &ldquo;establish and exercise unfettered control&rdquo; over the Nile River (UN Security Council, 2020).&nbsp;
In this sense, the official discourse has focused on the legal, political and generic socio-economic impacts of the GERD. Academic debates have not been much different. Most studies have focused on the technical/hydrological effects of the dam on Egypt and Sudan and their related economic implications, offering divergent estimations on the severity of these effects (e.g: ElZawahry &amp; Bekhit, 2017; ElSayed et al., 2020; Kahsay et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2016). Other scholars focused on the implications of the unilateral construction of the project on the balance of power in the Nile basin, and North-East Africa more generally (e.g., Salman, 2018; Tawfik, 2016). Media reporting was even more alarmist, expecting a water war in the basin (e.g., Leithead, 2018). This policy, academic and media focus has left the social implications of the project unaddressed and the voices of those who will be most adversely affected by its construction largely unheard.&nbsp;
<h3>GERD potential social and human implications: Who are the main losers?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>
While the previously cited figures can generally capture the socio-economic implications of the GERD on Egypt at the macro level, more studies are needed to assess impacts on the specific communities at the sub-national level. As the World Commission on Dams (WCD) noted in its report, downstream communities often lack social, economic and political power to seek mitigation of adverse impacts of large dams on their livelihoods, a fact that leads to inequitable outcomes of such projects (WCD, 2000). This fact remains true in many cases of mega dam projects more than two decades after publishing the report. As far as the GERD is concerned, macro level statistics used to assess the dam&rsquo;s socio-economic impacts neglect the distributional and equity-related consequences of the project (Strzepek, 2022). Since agriculture consumes around 80% of Egypt&rsquo;s water resources (Abdel Meguid 2019), it would be the sector most affected by decreases in water supply, aggravated if the GERD is filled in dry years. The Egyptian government has put in place several policies in anticipation of this potential impact and the increasing demand on water in the coming years as a result of population growth and economic development. These policies include lining canals, building new wastewater treatment and desalination plants, and rationing the cultivation of water-intensive crops, especially rice (Elmahdi &amp; Badawy, 2021).&nbsp;
Yet, the social and human cost of some of these policies have not been sufficiently investigated. For example, the reduction of the cultivated area of rice from 1.5 million feddans in 2003 to 724,000 feddans in 2020 has a high social and environmental cost. According to a recent report, this reduction would impact the food security and revenues of thousands of farmers in the Nile Delta, affect hundreds of small factories of rice processing and packing, and increase the salinity of agricultural land that was controlled for decades as a result of rice cultivation (El Nour, 2018).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
This last impact is particularly important given the expected effect of the GERD on increasing the salinity of the agricultural land in the Nile Delta. An early report by the Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab (J-WAFS) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) noted that during the filling of the GERD, Egypt would have less excess water to flush salt out of the agricultural soil of the Delta into the Mediterranean, which would lead to a fast buildup of salt in agricultural land. Although this increasing salinization is expected to happen in any case with increasing upstream withdrawals, GERD filling would significantly accelerate this process (J-WAFS, 2014). The far-reaching consequences of this acceleration on Egyptian farmers need to be inspected.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h3>Towards a new people-centered research, media and policy agenda&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>
In spite of the uncertainties resulting from the failure to reach an agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD, coupled with the future impacts of climate change, it is time to zoom in on the local communities to evaluate social and human impacts of the project. This needs to be done at different levels.
The first of these is the research level where field studies are conducted to assess the impact of the GERD on the livelihoods of specific communities. Although the limited filling of the GERD in the last two years (around 8bcm compared to the planned 18.5bcm) left very limited impacts on Egypt, the implications of the policies implemented in the last few years in anticipation of the reduction in water flowing to Egypt has already been felt in some communities and need be systematically surveyed. Few media outlets reported the stories of small farmers who used to grow rice for decades, but had to sell their lands to big owners or wealthy businesses, exacerbating existing inequalities. Others shifted to cultivating vegetables, which offers a lower and unstable income, or moved to other irregular jobs (Youssef, 2020). With many farmers, especially at the far north of the Delta, complaining that water reaching their lands is already scarce and infrequent, they expect the situation to deteriorate in the coming years with the filling of the GERD (El-Said, 2021). While national research centers, such as the National Water Research Centre, are exploring the scientific means of facing Egypt&rsquo;s future water challenges, a simultaneous effort needs to be done by social research centers to survey the current and assess the potential impacts of upstream Nile water developments, not just the GERD, on social communities in Egypt.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
A second and related level is media circles which need to reflect the voices and echo the fears of Egyptian farmers more pronouncedly. While Egyptian media has closely followed the different rounds of negotiations and official discussions of the GERD in diplomatic talks with other countries, presenting views and concerns of most affected social groups &ndash; that have no direct place on the negotiating table &ndash; is no less important. A media strategy that traces the social changes related to shifts in crop patterns, losing jobs in the agricultural sector and other changes related to Egypt&rsquo;s increasing water needs and decreasing water supply will be needed in the coming years.&nbsp;
At the policy level, urgent questions need to be discussed: how can the socio-economic costs of the GERD, and future potential projects upstream, be distributed more equitably? Can increasing tariffs on non-essential water uses in expanding luxury housing projects, for example, help finance the high-cost, water-saving irrigation systems that cannot be afforded by small farmers? What are the other means of social protection used by other downstream countries in other international river basins to reduce the impacts of mega projects upstream?
Ensuring the participation of vulnerable social groups in debates over these questions, or at least communicating decisions related to managing the potential risks of the GERD, is necessary to ease the fears of these groups. As noted earlier, for Egyptian farmers, the GERD is a project that would increase their suffering and even mean their &ldquo;death&rdquo;, as one farmer in Fayoum Oasis on the West of the Nile put it (Al-Jazeera, 2020). Part of this perception has to do with not knowing what to expect in terms of the scale and gravity of the potential effects of the project, in addition to the early impacts of the policies undertaken to reduce water demands illustrated before. Government communication &ndash; through the local officials of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation &ndash; on these effects and government policies to address them would help manage expectations and perceptions of risk.
On another front, although an active role of the Farmers&rsquo; Syndicate or other farmers associations in the GERD discourse is unlikely given the restrictions on independent associations, it is useful to allow a space for the farmers to publicly voice their concerns about the project. In fact, the government needs to realize that domestic activism in this policy area would be a source of strength rather than weakness, as it would demonstrate to other negotiating parties and the international community that there are crucial domestic interests at stake that are difficult to compromise. So far, there have been limited and occasional roles for Egyptian (and Sudanese) civil society, including the awareness-raising role of groups such as the United Fronts of Experts on the Dangers of the GERD and its individual members. A more systematic and strategic role of civil society groups, which can also include representatives of farmers, is needed to fill this vacuum and match the vigorous activism of the Ethiopian public on this issue.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
On the negotiating table, the issue of compensation needs to be brought up more vigorously in the coming rounds by both Egypt and Sudan. Compensation on significant harm is a central feature of the DoP. Yet, Ethiopia has succeeded in the last rounds in shifting the focus of negotiations from potential harm mitigation and compensation to debating the legal nature of the agreement, the sharing of burdens in cases of drought, and the relationship between the GERD filling and operation agreement and the broader Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) on the Nile Basin. In bringing compensation back to the negotiation agenda, it was noted that the negotiators can benefit from other experiences of transboundary rivers, such as the Senegal River Basin, where insurance schemes, including hydrological risk funds and crop insurance schemes can support riparian states and their vulnerable communities in cases of extreme hydrological events. These schemes can be supported by the international community to facilitate the conclusion and implementation of the filling and operation agreement (Strzepek, 2022).&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;
<hr>
References
<ul>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Abdel Meguid, M. (2019). Key features of Egypt&rsquo;s water and agricultural resources. In A.M. Negm (Ed.). Conventional Water Resources and Agriculture in Egypt (pp. 39-100). Springer.</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab. (2014). The grand Ethiopian renaissance dam: An opportunity for collaboration and shared benefits in the Eastern Nile basin. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://cutt.ly/9PEAR9b</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Al-Jazeera. (2020, August 20). &lsquo;Means our death&rsquo;: Egyptian farmers fear effect of the Ethiopian Dam. <a href="https://cutt.ly/DPuxa6B">https://cutt.ly/DPuxa6B</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Elmahdi, A., &amp; Badawy, A. (2021, June 17). Equity and Egypt&rsquo;s water paradigm shift. Alternative Policy Solutions. <a href="https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/700/equity-and-egypts-water-paradigm-shift">https://aps.aucegypt.edu/en/articles/700/equity-and-egypts-water-paradigm-shift</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">El-Nour, S. (2018, March 5). The dam, rice and the state: Environmental racism towards Delta farmers [al-sad w-aluruz w-al-dawla.. al-&lsquo;unsuriya al-bi&rsquo;iya tujah falaah al-delta]. Al-Manassa. [In Arabic]. <a href="https://almanassa.com/ar/story/8895">https://almanassa.com/ar/story/8895</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">El-Said, M. (2021, April 14). Egyptian farmers fearful as Ethiopia goes for 2nd Blue Nile dam filling. Daily News. <a href="https://cutt.ly/PPEPBAV">https://cutt.ly/PPEPBAV</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">El-Sayed, H., Djordjević, S., Savić, D.A., Tsoukalas, I., &amp; Makropoulos, C. (2020). The Nile water-food-energy nexus under uncertainty: Impacts of the grand Ethiopian renaissance dam. Journal of Water Resources Planning Management, 146(11).</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">El-Zawahry, A., &amp; Bekhit, H. (2017). Impacts of upper Nile mega projects on the water resources of Egypt. In A.M. Negm (Ed.). The Nile River (pp.503-529). Springer.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Kahsay, T.N., Kuik, O.J., Brouwer, R., &amp; van der Zaag, P. (2015). Estimation of the transboundary economic impacts of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam: A computable general equilibrium analysis. Water Resources and Economics, 10, 14-30.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Leithead, A. (2018, February 24). The 'water war' brewing over the new River Nile dam. BBC News. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43170408">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43170408</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">UN Security Council, Letter dated 1 May 2020 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, 4 May 2020, S/2020/355. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Salman, S.M.A. (2018). Agreement on the declaration of principles on the GERD: levelling the Nile Basin playing field. In Z. Yihdego, A, Rieu-Clarke, A.E. Casc&atilde;o (Eds.), The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the Nile Basin: Implications for transboundary water cooperation. Routledge.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Strzepek, K. (2022). The Role of Nile Water Resources in the Economic Development of Egypt and Ethiopia and the Potential Impacts of the GERD Filling Policies [Lecture]. Nile River Basin in Crisis: Water Sharing and Transboundary Conflict or Cooperation lecture series, UCLA African Studies Centre, January 12.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Tawfik, R. (2016). Changing hydropolitical relations in the Nile basin: a protracted transition. The International Spectator, 51(3), 67-81.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">World Commission on Dams. (2000). Dams and development: A new framework for decision-making. Earthscan publications.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Youssef, A. (2020, October 13). Egyptian farmers living in the shadows of the Ethiopian Dam. The Africa Report. &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/45385/egyptian-farmers-fear-ethiopias-gerd-will-change-their-livelihood/">https://www.theafricareport.com/45385/egyptian-farmers-fear-ethiopias-gerd-will-change-their-livelihood/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;" aria-level="1">Zhang, Y., Erkyihum, S.T., &amp; Block, P. (2016). Filling the GERD: evaluating hydroclimatic variability and impoundment strategies for Blue Nile riparian countries. Water International, 41(4), 593-610.</li>
</ul>

آراء

Commentaries

إدارة الموارد المائية

Read Also