Ethiopian, Egyptian and Sudanese leaders held a tripartite meeting regarding Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile River. At the end of the meeting, the leaders of the three countries have decided to provide a high-level political umbrella to support the talks on the GERD.

The leaders, Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi of Egypt and Omer al-Bashir of Sudan met on the sidelines of the ongoing African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

Bassam Radi, spokesperson to the Egyptian president, said that the three leaders underscored the urgency of developing a unified view on the dam, on the basis of the declaration of principles signed in Khartoum in 2015. This talk is a continuation of a discussion the three countries started in January 2018. The spokesperson also added that another discussion point during the meeting was, “ways and means of promoting cooperation and relations among the three countries”.

It has been a recurrent issue that Egypt fears its water share would be drawn down by the filling of the GERD which is expected to hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate electrical power of over 6,000 megawatts.

In May 2018, the three countries agreed to set up a joint technical team consisting of five members from each country to study the filling of the GERD reservoir and operating the dam. Egypt withdrew its proposal to resort to the World Bank on the matter. So far, the technical team has held four meetings to discuss options and strategies for filling the GERD.

Ethiopia, on the other hand, while open to discussions with the upper Nile countries, has repeatedly made its resolve known on completing its mega project of the GERD.

Source: Sudan Tribune