Politics

Egypt’s hardens stance as Ethiopia plans more Nile dams

Cairo has sharpened its rhetoric, believing Addis Ababa is more interested in using the Nile as a weapon than for electricity generation

Digital Repository of Egypt's Official Media

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arrives at the State Strategic Command headquarters—known as "The Octagon"—in the New Administrative Capital on 4 July 2026.

Egypt’s hardens stance as Ethiopia plans more Nile dams

Amr Emam

last update on 27 Aug 2026

In March 2021, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visited the Suez Canal to thank its workers for reopening the crucial maritime passageway. A few days earlier, a huge container vessel got wedged sideways, blocking a global trade artery for several days. While there, a journalist asked him about Ethiopia damming the Nile River, Egypt’s principal source of fresh water. Al-Sisi was unequivocal: nobody could take a drop of Egypt’s water. “Grab it if you think you’re tough enough,” he said confidently.

It was widely seen as a message to Ethiopia, which was then constructing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the largest on the Blue Nile, the Nile's main tributary. Al-Sisi had earlier said that Egypt preferred a negotiated solution to reach a contractual deal on operating and filling the GERD reservoir. Five years later, such a contract is unlikely. Ethiopia seems in no mood to compromise.

Controlling the flow

In August, Ethiopian Water and Energy Minister Habtamu Itefa Gelata said his country was now in full control of the river’s flow to downstream states, namely Egypt and Sudan, and confirmed plans to build three more dams on the Blue Nile. With al-Sisi’s 2021 ultimatum having been ignored, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt reserved the right to defend its Nile water rights. Water Minister Hani Suweillam rejected the construction of additional dams on the Nile, describing the GERD as “illegitimate”.

These statements reflect Cairo’s deep anger over a project that threatens the freshwater supply of more than 110 million Egyptians, but decision-makers likely believe the cost of using military force against the GERD could be far higher than the cost of inaction. Almost a decade of negotiations with Ethiopia, with dozens of meetings in Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum, have led the Egyptians nowhere. Mediation by the US and the African Union also failed. As a result, Cairo has lost confidence in diplomacy.

Egypt’s former irrigation minister Mohamed Nasr Allam said Ethiopia wants to deprive Egypt of a river that has run through it for thousands of years. “Egypt will use all means to prevent this from happening,” he told Al Majalla. Allam served under President Hosni Mubarak, shortly before construction on the dam began. He feels that other dams on the Blue Nile have nothing to do with Ethiopia’s water or electricity needs, but are aimed at undermining Egypt by cutting off its lifeline. “This is why all options are on the table,” he said. “A state is nothing if it cannot protect its citizens’ interests.”

Luis TATO / AFP — Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed delivers his remarks during the official inauguration ceremony of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, on 9 September 2025.

Strategic development

Having cost $5bn, the GERD can store 74 billion cubic metres of water and produce 5,150 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Ethiopia says it will lift tens of millions of its citizens out of poverty. About 55% of Ethiopians lack access to electricity, which is worst in rural areas. Ethiopian political analyst Jamal Ali Bashir described the GERD as a “strategic” development project. “Apart from providing rural Ethiopians with electricity, the GERD will provide the industrial sector with a cheap source of power,” he told Al Majalla.

“The export of electricity to neighbouring countries will also bring in much-needed revenues to the national treasury.” He believes the main logic behind the GERD and other dams is to utilise Ethiopia’s water resources and dismissed Egyptian claims that the aim is to harm downstream states. “On the contrary, these projects aim to generate power,” Bashir said. “They will also regulate the flow of the river’s water to Sudan, which will protect it against flooding and open the door for a more efficient operation of its Nile dams.”

The uncoordinated discharge of enormous amounts of water during the rainy season in October last year caused flooding in Sudan

Ethiopia hopes to receive around $1bn in annual revenues from electricity exports to neighbouring states once the GERD is fully operational. But Ethiopia's refusal to share the GERD's operational information with these states has caused problems. The uncoordinated discharge of enormous amounts of water from the dam's spillways during the rainy season in October last year caused flooding in Sudan. A lack of coordination with downstream states during dry spells could be catastrophic, specialists say.

Little is known about how Ethiopia will finance the construction of its three new dams on the Blue Nile. With a combined generating capacity larger than that of the GERD (5,700 MW), the three dams (Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo) will cost around $10bn. Addis Ababa hopes to complete them within seven years of the start of construction and to replicate the GERD as a national energy development model.

Institutional continuity

If implemented, the three dams would deepen Ethiopia's hydropower portfolio, expand its electricity-generation base, and strengthen its hand in regional power markets, according to the Institute of Foreign Affairs, an Ethiopian think-tank. "The GERD demonstrated Ethiopia's capacity to complete a project of continental significance... A cascade would demonstrate something different: institutional continuity."

Multiple large projects, it noted, require sustained engineering expertise, project management capacity, financing, transmission investment, and regulatory coordination. "If Ethiopia can reproduce these capabilities across several projects, hydropower becomes not merely a flagship infrastructure achievement but a durable pillar of national economic strategy."

Yet the country still faces a severe macroeconomic and debt crisis, and funding opportunities for new projects may be limited. Resorting to domestic resources and national self-reliance would mean mirroring the financing model used for the GERD, something Bashir expected. "Funding for the construction of the GERD came from Ethiopian citizens, including expatriate communities in other countries, and from the Ethiopian government, friendly nations, and international development agencies."

Existential arithmetic

Egypt gets more than 55 billion cubic metres of water from the Nile annually, a historical right enshrined in a water-sharing agreement between Egypt and Sudan from 1959. This annual quota constitutes Egypt's principal source of freshwater. Its share has remained consistent over the decades, despite Egypt's population quadrupling since 1959. It now suffers an annual water deficit of around 33 billion cubic metres, according to the government.

This deficit makes it one of the poorest countries in terms of per capita water share, which has not dropped below 490 cubic metres per year. The UN water poverty threshold is 1,000 cubic metres annually. As Egypt's population grows, there is growing pressure. A reduced release of water from the GERD could threaten Egypt's ability to feed its people and irrigate its farms.

Reuters — A rural worker carrying baskets of prickly pears, known locally in Egyptian Arabic as Teen Shoki, during the harvest at a farm in Meet Kenana village, Al Qalyubia, Egypt, on 23 July 2025.

Leading agricultural economist Nadir Nour Eddin said Egypt and Sudan were fortunate that most of the five separate fillings of the GERD's reservoir from 2020-24 occurred during the rainy seasons, so neither was significantly affected by the filling phases. Yet the two downstream states started feeling the pinch after the dam began operations in September 2025.

Discharge from the dam after its turbines began operating caused the amount of water stored in its reservoir to drop. When the rainy season came in March 2026, Ethiopia prioritised refilling its reservoir, not releasing water to Egypt and Sudan. "This negatively affected Sudan, whose Nile dams stopped operating," Nour Eddin told Al Majalla.

Low rainfall made things worse, he added, criticising Addis Ababa for not sharing the burden. Ethiopia chose instead to withhold water. "The discharge of less water from the GERD causes an automatic drop in the amount of water stored in the High Dam in Egypt," Nour Eddin said. "Over time, this reduced discharge will be felt in Egypt, which will be less capable of meeting its water needs."

Water as weapon

Egypt denies opposing development in Ethiopia but says it wants the Ethiopians to consider its water interests. This is why Cairo has demanded a binding contract that ensures the continued flow of water from the Nile, including during droughts or periods of low precipitation. Additional dams on the Blue Nile would make a deal less likely. Cairo sees this as evidence that Addis Ababa is more concerned with using the Nile as a weapon than with electricity generation. This may explain Egypt's sharpening rhetoric.

shutterstock — An aerial view of the Nile River.

Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since 2023. Before this, Khartoum's position oscillated. Officials initially saw the GERD as useful, hoping electricity from the dam could make up for domestic shortages. Cairo initially embraced diplomacy, but later accused the Ethiopians of using negotiations to buy time until the dam became a 'fact on the ground'. Ever since, Egypt has pursued a policy of encirclement, deploying troops to Somalia and signing common defence pacts with Eritrea and Uganda.

African affairs specialist Ashraf Abul Saud said Ethiopia wants to enforce a "hydrological dominance doctrine" in the Nile Basin. By constructing another three dams on the Nile, he said Ethiopia sought to tighten its control over the amount and timing of water release to both Sudan and Egypt. "It wants to use these dams as an operational pressure card on the GERD before Blue Nile waters are released from it to downstream states," he told Al Majalla.

"Cairo will most likely create a new regional dynamism where Ethiopia's geographical security will be tied to Egypt's water security," Abul Saud said. Egypt would do this, he added, by enhancing its cooperation with Ethiopia's neighbours. Egypt cannot bomb the GERD because this would cause devastation to both Sudan and Egypt, turning the dam into a hydrological bomb, given the huge amount of water stored in it.

The effectiveness of Egypt's encirclement strategy in securing its Nile water rights will only become clear over time, but the outcome could shift the balance of power in the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin for decades. Geopolitically, this is linked to Ethiopia's desire for Red Sea access, which Egypt also opposes. Few expect tensions to ease between these regional rivals any time soon. A drought may offer the ultimate test.

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