Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan Meet to Draft Deal on GERD

Addis  Ababa, January 23/2020 (ENA) Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan started talks in Khartoum to draft a deal on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) filling and operations. 

The three nations agreed, following a meeting in Washington DC, that the mega dam on the River Nile should be filled in stages during the rainy season.

The 4.6 billion USD flagship dam project on the Blue Nile, which promises to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopia’s 100 million people, has been a contentious point among the three main Nile Basin countries.

Ethiopia hopes the dam will help to fill the electric power gap in the country with no significant impact on the downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan.

The Blue Nile flows from Ethiopia into Sudan where it joins the White Nile near Khartoum, to form the Nile River.

Eighty-five percent of Nile waters originate in Ethiopia from the Blue Nile, which is one of the Nile’s two main tributaries, along with the White Nile.