Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – Ethiopia is launching a major diplomatic offensive to win international support for its renaissance dam project, whose construction is underway despite a strong Egyptian objection.
A panel, comprising ministers, senior political, community and religious leaders, is due to launch the diplomatic outreach.
Members of Ethiopia’s Inter-Religious Council are part of the groups leading delegations across Africa and the world.
The team will explain Ethiopia’s position on the use of its River Nile resource to international partners and engage with ordinary citizens.
Egypt, which insists Ethiopia’s construction of the massive dam will starve it of a substantial share of the Nile resource, has been campaigning against the project.
Ethiopian diplomats admit Egyptian-led campaign has drastically swayed global financiers against the project, currently estimated to cost US$5 billion.
“The shift is there economically. It is easily visible in terms of our development projects undertaken without external assistance,” former Ethiopian ambassador to Egypt, Ibrahim Idris, told the private daily, The Reporter.
Italian contractors, Salini, have completed the dam’s foundation work, which is almost more than a third of the entire project.
The first phase of the dam, due for commissioning in 2015, will generate 700 megawatts of electricity. The 6,000 MW hydroelectric power project is due for completion in 2017.
Ambassador Idris, who is currently the Ethiopian Foreign ministry’s Director-General in charge of the trans-boundary resources, said Egypt had internationalised the dam project.
In Egypt, political rhetoric has been escalated with talk of possible Egyptian military strike against the dam.
Ethiopian officials say Egyptian politicians are possibly using the dam to gain domestic political mileage rather than addressing real challenges.
“I feel they are using it for their own domestic political agenda. This is why they keep oscillating between peaceful negotiation and war rhetoric,” Ambassador Idris told the paper.
Locally, employees of mostly state agencies have been in the news, donating their monthly salaries to fund the construction of the dam.
The Grand Renaissance Dam has been described as a source of Ethiopian pride. It is a 63-billion-cubic-meter reservoir.
Ethiopian local media reports quoted Sudanese officials as taking a middle-ground on the Ethiopian-Egyptian row.
They reported that Sudanese political parties have supported Ethiopia.
Khartoum is keen to import excess electric power and also expect a decline in flooding downstream.
In East Africa, other countries sharing the Nile River have sided with Ethiopia on Addis Ababa’s right to use the Nile waters.
Photo: AFP
