After more than a decade of construction and multiple reservoir fillings, Ethiopia officially inaugurated its massive hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile earlier this month. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the largest dam in Africa, with a total price tag of around $5 billion.
Ethiopia’s leadership has portrayed the GERD as a profound symbol of national pride. Speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the project, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has increasingly embraced a nationalistic policy agenda, compared the GERD’s completion to the 1896 Battle of Adwa, when the Ethiopian Empire successfully repelled an invasion by Italian forces. Abiy likely hopes the project will instill his fellow Ethiopians with a sense of patriotism as the country struggles with an economic crisis amid a slow recovery from the brutal Tigray war that ended in 2022.
In addition to its political symbolism, the dam also provides Ethiopia with new economic leverage. The GERD began generating power in 2022 when its first turbine came online; now that the dam is at full capacity, it is expected to generate around 15,700 gigawatt-hours annually and up to $1 billion in power export revenue. That could be transformative for Ethiopians, some 44 percent of whom still lack access to electricity.
Although Abiy emphasized in a July 2025 speech that Ethiopia’s rise will not come at the expense of downstream states, the GERD has consistently raised alarms in neighboring Sudan and Egypt. Cairo long resisted dam development on the Nile, which accounts for 97 percent of its fresh water. In 1979, then-President Anwar Sadat even stated that “the only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.”
Egypt’s current leader, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has similarly declared the GERD to be a matter of “life and death.” Following the dam’s inauguration, Cairo lodged a complaint at the U.N. Security Council, denouncing Ethiopia’s unilateral filling and operation of the dam as both a “violation of international law” and a breach of previous commitments.
One of Egypt’s leading complaints is that Ethiopia has acted outside the spirit of the 2015 Declaration of Principles, a nonbinding agreement under which Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia agreed to equitable and reasonable use of Nile waters and to cooperate on rules for filling and operating the GERD. However, subsequent negotiations under the auspices of that deal broke down, and Ethiopia pressed ahead with filling the dam’s reservoir unilaterally. The issue is further complicated by the fact that neither Egypt nor Ethiopia has ratified the 1997 U.N. Watercourses Convention, which seeks to balance equitable utilization of water resources with a “no significant harm” principle for downstream states.
Egypt has good reason to worry, given it already faces per capita freshwater availability of just 510 cubic meters annually, far below the U.N.’s water scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic meters. While consecutive years of above-average rainfall in the early 2020s allowed Ethiopia to fill the dam’s reservoirs without significantly restricting the flow to downstream states, Cairo fears that Ethiopia could withhold its water supply during any future period of prolonged drought.
The chances of a direct military conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt over the dam are slim, but low-grade clashes could erupt in the form of a proxy fight.
In addition to anxiety over water insecurity, there are political concerns. Sisi fears that failure to counter the dam could damage his domestic credibility, especially amid growing discontent over his management of the Egyptian economy. His calls to resist the GERD also echo Cairo’s longstanding position that it has a rightful claim to direct the Nile’s management, rooted in successive treaties and Egypt’s erstwhile position as the foremost regional power. In that sense, the GERD represents a new geopolitical reality that Egypt is struggling to adjust to.
For Sudan, the outlook is mixed, especially with its own leverage reduced by the country’s ongoing, brutal civil war. Khartoum has at times recognized the potential benefits of the dam, such as more predictable river flows and improved flood control during rainy seasons. One recent study found that the GERD’s sediment trapping could extend the lifespan of Sudan’s Roseires reservoir, itself crucial to meeting demands for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water. On the other hand, poorly coordinated water releases could reduce nutrient flows to Sudan’s soils, harming the river’s natural systems and reducing its ecological health.
That said, environmental experts are confident that the risks posed by the GERD can be managed. A December 2024 peer-reviewed study found that with effective coordination, the GERD could meet Ethiopia’s energy goals without exacerbating water shortages for Egypt, even in drought conditions. This points to the potential for compromise, but only if the countries involved can formalize and adhere to a binding agreement.
For Egypt, such a deal could even bring indirect benefits. Much of its water loss occurs through evaporation at Lake Nasser, behind the Aswan High Dam. Coordinated releases from the GERD may, in theory, help optimize water management, turning a zero-sum conflict into an opportunity. But this requires trust and a willingness from Egypt to accept that its unilateral dominance over Nile waters is no longer tenable.
For now, tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia make a binding treaty unlikely. Egypt has sought to rally support from its neighbors, including Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia, with Sisi making state visits to each nation prior to the GERD’s completion. These states have their own frictions with Ethiopia, so Sisi may hope to isolate Abiy by rallying them to his side. Such a strategy carries risk, in that it may harden Abiy’s already hawkish stance while diminishing the chances of a negotiated resolution.
Past efforts at diplomacy have made only halting progress. The U.S. has tried to mediate the issue in the past, most recently in late 2019, but the talks collapsed as Ethiopia felt Washington was siding with Egypt. Mediation efforts by the African Union, backed by the European Union and United Nations, also faltered after Ethiopia rejected a proposal for binding and enforceable rules, particularly after Addis Ababa reiterated its past commitment to a nonbinding agreement.
There is potential for China to play a role, particularly as it shows more willingness to mediate global disputes. Both Egypt and Ethiopia are now members of BRICS, which gives Beijing an interest and a common forum for shepherding the two sides toward an agreement. At the same time, Beijing wouldn’t exactly be a neutral arbiter, as its banks have invested heavily in Ethiopia, including around $1.2 billion for the GERD’s electricity supply infrastructure. If China does play a role, it will likely be modest, perhaps nudging Egypt to temper its historical claims.
The chances of a direct military conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt are slim, but low-grade clashes could erupt in the form of a proxy fight, as Egypt has recently increased its security cooperation with neighboring Somalia, sparking statements of concern from Addis Ababa. For example, Egypt has agreed to contribute troops to the AU’s support mission aimed at combating extremist groups operating in Somalia, to which Ethiopia is also a major contributor of forces.
What the GERD illustrates most of all is the enduring risk of disputes over water in an era of climate stress. While it has so far proven elusive, a durable settlement will ultimately depend on a shared willingness between Ethiopia and Egypt to uphold international law, build trust and forge compromise. Without that, the dispute will almost certainly continue to be a flashpoint for the region.
