Hydro-hegemony and the struggle for the Nile’s future

The Nile is the longest transboundary river in the world, extending from Eastern Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, and flows through eleven countries. It has two main tributaries: the White Nile, which originates from Lake Victoria and the Blue Nile in Lake Tsana. From a contemporary and modern historical perspective, the Nile has been largely under Egyptian dominance, with a particular support from Sudan and other longstanding colonial and development partners. The main two treaties governing Nile water-sharing are the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1929 and the Egyptian-Sudanese Treaty in 1959. These treaties have been primarily benefitted Egypt; the former allocated it 48 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water and granted it veto power over any construction projects on the Nile River.

Sudan, despite having longstanding strategic relations with Egypt, was allocated 4 BCM of water under the 1929 agreement. The subsequent treaty in 1959, allocated 55.5 BCM to Egypt and 18.5 BCM to Sudan, while the remaining 10 BCM was left for evaporation. Dating back to 1920s, the Nile Projects Commission was responsible for reviewing Nile water use in Sudan and Egypt. Therefore, for a long time, the core actor that dominated hydropower politics on the Nile River was Egypt, and followed by Sudan.

In 1999, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was established as a partnership comprising the Nile riparian states, including Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Eritrea. Almost a decade later, this intergovernmental partnership laid the foundation for a legal framework known as the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), adopted in 2010 and intended to apply to all riparian countries. The intention was to transform past colonial-era treaties into a comprehensive regulatory framework for the management, water-sharing and development of the Nile.

This initiative marked a departure from the past unilateral water allocations, and called for a new, harmonious, and integrated water management, which led to the establishment of an implementing body in 2024 known as the Nile River Basin Commission (NRBC). Egypt and Sudan opposed the new framework in 2010 and suspended their participation in the CFA and its implementing institution. Although Sudan returned in 2013, both countries have continued to freeze their active participation, claiming the neglect of their historical water rights in 1959 agreement, and calling for adherence to the 1999 founding principles of the partnership.

The origin and funding of the project

Between 1956 and 1964, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation conducted survey on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia and identified the potential location of the current Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The report also forecast the availability of irrigable land to support food security in Ethiopia. However, due to prolonged internal tensions and conflicts, weak political will and implementing capacity, limited diplomatic support, and Egypt’s extensive diplomatic pressure, Ethiopia was unable to unilaterally initiate such a controversial project at the time.

Ethiopia began construction of the GERD in April 2011. The GERD is one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world and the largest in Africa, with a power-generating capacity of 5,510 MW. The dam contract was awarded to the Italian firm Salini Impregilo (Webuild) at an approximate cost of $4.8 billion. In addition, China’s Exim Bank provided $1 billion for contributing the turbines and other electrical equipment.

The state-led dominations and rivalries over the Nile River have roots traceable to the colonial treaties, in which the British Imperial favored the downstream colonies over other riparian states, largely due to their reliance on cotton agriculture and the river’s status quo. After decolonization, the United States took diverse roles, including diplomatic, financial and technical to influence the hydropower politics of the Nile, most notably through its 1964’s survey, and subsequent development engagements. Washington’s actions served as a counterweight to Soviet expansion during the Cold War, particularly to mitigate threats arising from the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Suez Crisis, and Cairo’s growing engagement with Moscow between the 1950s and 1970s.

There are differing and sometimes opposing perspectives regarding the funding of the dam. Ethiopia describes the financing of the GERD as a locally and nationally driven initiative, with most of the funds raised from Ethiopian citizens through donations, bonds, payroll contributions, and the diaspora contributions. In contrast, some analysts argue that Ethiopia has also received substantial financial and technical support from foreign sources, including the United States, China, Gulf countries, and Europe. It is therefore possible that foreign aid has been used to develop supplementary infrastructure for the dam.

Ethiopia has long participated in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has benefitted from significant infrastructure development over the past two decades, suggesting that China has played a substantial role in the development of the GERD. In 2014, Ethiopia signed a contract with two Chinese companies to build the regional Geba Dam in southwestern Ethiopia at a cost of $583 million, which is financed through a loan from China.

Subsequently, in 2019, Ethiopia hired two Chinese contractors, one of which is government-owned, to contribute to the construction of the GERD at an estimated cost of approximately $150 million. Since 2013, China has provided to Ethiopia with loans totaling approximately $2-3 billion to expand power transmission from the GERD to major cities and towns. Although Beijing may not have directly participated in the construction of the dam but, its state-affiliated companies, financial support, related infrastructure, and technical assistance have played a prominent role in project’s development.

Since the late 1950s, the United States has maintained a longstanding commitment to Ethiopia’s GERD ambitions and is also the largest bilateral donor to the country. The U.S. has granted Ethiopia approximately $1 billion annually, and in 2021, the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia reported that over the previous three years, the United State had provided more than $3 billion to support diverse sectors including, energy and agriculture. The U.S. president Donald Trump repeatedly claimed, both in the past year and more recently, that U.S. involvement in the GERD, particularly its funding was critical, while simultaneously addressing concerns over reductions in the Nile’s flow to Egypt. Former Egyptian Minister of Irrigation, Mohamed Nasr Allam, referred to the dam conflict as part of a long-time, Washington-planned strategy dating back to the 1960s and 2011.

Trump’s statements regarding the funding of the GERD, the previous U.S.-brokered negotiations, alignment with Egypt’s position, and the recent calls for mediation could all be seen as efforts to secure a significant role in political bargaining and to extract concessions that advance Washington’s interests in the broader region, particularly in Egypt and Ethiopia. Moreover, whether the United States has directly funded the project or contributed indirectly through by bilateral aid and US-aligned Gulf financing, Washington appears to be seeking a potential role in shaping the future of the Ethiopian dam for its broader strategic and regional objectives in the Horn of Africa and Middle East. Furthermore, U.S. political and diplomatic efforts may also be interpreted as a counterweight to China’s financial and technical involvement in the GERD.

Negotiations & international responses

Since the beginning of the GERD project, tensions over the Nile have captured the global and regional attention, engaging a diverse range of actors. Ethiopia has consistently sought to resolve the matter at a trilateral level, whereas Egypt and Sudan have preferred to involve multilateral, regional and global powers level.

In 2015, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt have signed the Declaration of Principles (DoP) outlining a framework for constructive negotiations on the Nile-related issues. Subsequently, in November 2019, the United States and the World Bank hosted talks between the three countries, and in January 2020, the parties issued a joint statement outlining points of initial agreements. However, Ethiopia did not participate in-follow up talks scheduled for February 2020 to finalize the draft. Ultimately, Ethiopia refused to sign the outcome proposal, arguing that the draft did not reflect the results of the negotiations, unilaterally prioritized Egypt’s interests in drought mitigation, and accused the United States of bias.

In June 2020, Egypt presented the case to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and requested intervention in the matter. In the subsequent months, Ethiopia and Sudan also sent letters to the UNSC. In September 2021, the UNSC did not issue a binding resolution but adopted a presidential statement that referred the matter to be resolved under the auspices of the African Union (AU). The AU has long facilitated talks between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan; however, these efforts have so far failed to reach agreements on core issues, such as consensus on the dam’s filling or establishing dispute resolution mechanisms.

Gulf countries

The Gulf countries (GCC) have long been involved in the affairs of the Horn of Africa and Northern Africa, particularly regarding tensions over the Ethiopian dam. Some of the Gulf countries, like Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, have supported Egypt’s position on the dam, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has maintained a neutral position, calling for continued dialogue and diplomatic negotiations. Given its significant bilateral relations with both Ethiopia and Sudan, Abu Dhabi also hosted secret talks to facilitate some sort of agreement over the Nile. However, these efforts failed, and the UAE continued to act neutrally in order to protect its interests with both countries.

Arab countries, particularly the GCC states, have largely supported the narratives of Egypt and Sudan by framing the dispute as an issue of water security and national survival, and more broadly as an integral component of Arab regional water security. Although Saudi Arabia and UAE are among the Gulf states with the most significant relations with Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, the two major Ethiopia has faced; the dam dispute and access to the Red Sea, have encountered objections from Saudi Arabia and other GCC members.

First, Saudi Arabia has taken a broader position in supporting of Egypt, reinforcing the framing of the dispute as one involving Arab water security interests. Second, Saudi Arabia prioritizes the preservation of the Red Sea in terms of sovereignty and stability by preferring the littoral states that are perceived as more predictable and manageable and, to some extent, relatively weak coastal actors, such as Yemen, Jordan, Djibouti, and Eritrea.

In contrast, Ethiopia is acting as a more ambitious, and inland power whose potential access to the Red Sea could challenge the existing status quo. This led Saudi Arabia and its allies to view Ethiopia as a source of increased competition, unpredictability, and strategic threat.

The UAE has adopted a neutral and mediating position on the dam dispute, despite GCC and Arab League statements, while simultaneously signaling support for Ethiopia’s aspirations for access to the sea. The two countries maintain strong relations across several areas, including economic cooperation, investment, trade, and military engagement. The UAE’s contemporary foreign policy interests have increasingly focused on ports infrastructure, maritime trade, investments, military and security engagements. In this context, Ethiopia’s landlocked status has encouraged the UAE tend support Addis Ababa’s access to sea ambitions as mutually beneficial.

Dubai-based DP World’s investment in the Berbera port in Somaliland where Ethiopia acquired a 19% stake in 2018, has been widely interpreted as aligning with Ethiopia’s strategy to diversify its port access beyond Djibouti and incrementally formalize its maritime aspirations. However, Ethiopia later lost its 19 percent stake in 2022 due to its failure to fulfill the contractual conditions of the agreement.

Sudan, Egypt and axis of coalitions

In the post-Bashir era, Sudan has shifted from close alignment with Egypt toward a more neutral and neighborhood-based pragmatic approach toward Ethiopia. In early of 2023, the head of Sudan’s military council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, emphasized an alignment with Ethiopia on issues related to the dam, signaling a significant departure from Sudan’s longstanding position on Nile tensions. By late 2023, however, relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa had gradually deteriorated. This shift was largely attributed to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s decision to hostthe leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti), a move widely interpreted as a sudden change in Ethiopia’s stance toward the Sudanese conflict.

In addition, since Abu Dhabi and Addis Ababa have maintained close relations and initially appeared to align on similar positions regarding the Sudanese conflict. However, in July 2024, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited Port Sudan and met with Al-Burhan. These steps were interpreted as Ethiopian attempts to position itself as a mediator, both between the RSF and the SAF, and between the SAF and UAE. Regardless of Ethiopia’s intentions, these efforts ultimately failed, and Addis Ababa has increasingly been perceived as taking a sidelined role that implicitly favors the RSF.

Since late of 2025, reports have suggested that the Sudanese conflict may expand into an eastern front along Ethiopia’s Blue Nile border. Some accounts indicate that the RSF has been allowed to establish a training camp near the Blue Nile border in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region, allegedly enabling the group to expand its operations on multiple fronts. Additional reports claim that the RSF has been facilitated in receiving logistical and military supplies through neighboring ports, including Mombasa, Bosaso, and Berbera. The Beninshangul-Gumuz region, located in north-western Ethiopia, and hosting the GERD, is therefore of particular strategic sensitivity. Any escalation in this area could significantly exacerbate tensions and risk a broader regional conflict.

Egyptia’s maneuvering efforts to prevent the filling of the dam, while simultaneously opposing Ethiopia’s aspirations for access to the sea, have contributed to the emergence of a regional strategic counterbalancing coalition often described as an “axis against Ethiopia”. This alignment has included Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, and, to a more hesitant extent, Somalia. The formation of this coalition was further accelerated following the January 2024 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Somaliland and Ethiopia, which was firmly opposed by most Arab state and Red Sea littoral countries.

Ethiopia has perceived these evolving alignments as part of a broader encirclement strategy. Within this context, its alleged involvement in Sudan’s internal conflict can be interpreted as a counter-strategy aimed at pressuring Khartoum and indirectly aligning with the RSF’s future strategy in Sudan. More broadly, these shifts may reflect Ethiopia’s attempt to rebalance against a collective front of littoral Red Sea states and downstream riparian countries that oppose Addis Ababa’s strategy of the two water bodies, the Blue Nile and Red Sea access.

In September 2021, during the height of the Tigray Conflict, Addis Ababa denied Khartoum’s proposed mediation initiative, accusing Sudan of bias and of supporting the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). Ethiopian officials further alleged that Sudan of being responsible in facilitating armed groups seeking to sabotage the GERD and disrupt its construction. Khartoum denied all these accusations, and following the outbreak of the Tigray War, Sudan deployed forces along its eastern border with Ethiopia.

The European Union, China and USA

Egypt maintains a deep wide-ranging relationship with the European Union (EU), which in recent years has evolved into a strategic and comprehensive partnership covering multiple areas, including security, scientific cooperation, economic development, migration, and political aspect. The EU is among Egypt’s largest trading partners and investors.

In the context of Ethiopian Dam, the EU has largely supported Egypt’s position, explicitly endorsing Cairo’s normative framing of the dispute. The EU has repeatedly stressed the need to respect Egypt’s water security concerns and has called for a mutually acceptable and legally binding agreement governing the filling and operation of the dam.

Despite Ethiopia’s own substantial and multifaceted relations with the EU, Addis Ababa has firmly opposed the Union’s stance on the GERD on several occasions. Ethiopia have accused the EU of favoring the Egypt’s position, strengthening colonial-era water agreements, and legitimizing downstream water interests at the expense of Ethiopian’s development rights.

On the other hand, since the onset of the GERD dispute, the United States has consistently sought to assume a mediating role. Washington has significant strategic interest in leveraging the tension across multiple dimensions while simultaneously engaging Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. The U.S.-brokered initiatives in 2019 and subsequent years illustrate this approach. Although Ethiopia has rejected the U.S. proposals on the grounds of partiality, Washington continues to present itself as a uniquely positioned actor capable of resolving the protracted dispute, global diplomatic influence, historical involvement of the Nile hydropolitics, past engagement in GERD negotiations, and more recently Donald Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy.

In contrast, from 2011 to the present, China has emerged as the main financier associated with the Ethiopia’s dam-related infrastructure through direct loans, public-private hybrid companies, and construction contracts. Unlike the United States and Europe, Beijing has neither hosted negotiations among Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan nor adopted explicit political positions in support of any party to the dispute.

Nevertheless, the GERD aligns with Beijing’s long-term strategic interests in infrastructure development under the BRI. Despite this alignment, Beijing maintained a restrained diplomatic posture, focusing primarily on its technical and financial engagements with Ethiopia’s dam development while safeguarding its broader interests of the Suez Canal in Egypt. Given that China upholds the non-interference doctrine, Beijing has avoided direct political involvement in the dispute, instead endorsing the initiatives of resolution of tensions through trilateral mechanisms and under the auspices of African Union.

Controversial perspectives over the dam

Throughout the history of tensions over the Nile, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have presented competing and often controversial arguments. One of the most contentious issues concerns rights and ownership of the Nile water. Ethiopia has long argued that it holds sovereign rights over the Blue Nile, on the grounds that the river originates within its territory, and almost 85 percent of the Nile’s total flow comes from Ethiopian highlands. However, water rights cannot be understood solely through territorial boundaries and state sovereignty.

The Nile is a transboundary river system flows across multiple countries and produces political, economic, environmental and social effects beyond a single state. As a shared resource, its basins, tributaries, floods risks, and climate factors transcend modern political borders and state sovereignty, the question therefore arises concerns on what basis can exclusive ownership be claimed by Ethiopia or by any single state?

Ethiopia and the downstream states, Egypt and Sudan, have fundamentally approached negotiations differently. Addis Ababa has favored non-binding guidelines, allowing it to rely on state sovereignty to proceed the construction of the dam while avoiding binding water transboundary frameworks. In contrast, Cairo and Khartoum have sought a legally binding agreement, drawing on precedents established by colonial-era treaties of 1929 and 1959.

While these historical agreements cannot be treated as immutable or sacred texts, the contemporary context justifies the need to address the disputes they have generated. Such resolution, however, can only be achieved through a consensual process that accommodates the interests of all concerned parties.

Another major divergence lies in how the parties framed the project and the nature of the dispute. Ethiopia has consistently presented the dam as a development and water resource perspective, whereas Egypt and Sudan have framed it as a matter of national security and existential survival. This latter framing has received substantial support from the Arab League states as well as regional and global actors. Similarly, Ethiopia position has emphasized the discourse of benefit-sharing, while largely avoiding prerequisite cooperation for water-sharing.

In addition, Ethiopia has framed the Nile dispute as an unfair colonial legacy that has historically favored downstream countries while neglecting the water and hydropower interests of the upper riparian states. Addis Ababa views the GERD as a step toward decolonizing its waters and countering longstanding hydro-hegemony of Cairo and Khartoum. This argument has received substantial support from other African nations and pro-decolonization actors in the Global South.

By contrast, much of the current political and hydrological architecture of the African continent, including state borders and water management frameworks is itself a product of colonial legacies. Focusing exclusively on one perceived injustice while ignoring broader historical and structural factors presents a contradictory perspective. It also raises a question: would attempts to restructure colonial-era water arrangements encourage similar challenges to other inherited colonial frameworks across the region? These conflicting perspectives have objectively and conceptually hindered the potential for productive negotiations among the riparian states.

Potential opportunities and risks

The dam and its large-scale electricity generation are expected to produce significant positive outcome, particularly by reducing Ethiopia’s chronic electricity shortage. Reports indicate that only 50 percent of Ethiopia’s population currently has access to electricity; however, the GERD is intended to double the country’s power generation capacity. The surplus electricity is planned to be exported to the neighboring countries. Accordingly, Ethiopia has signed several agreements of power-sharing with states in the region.

South Sudan is one of the anticipated recipients of the dam’s electricity and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ethiopia in 2022. Under this agreement, Ethiopia committed to supply up to 500 megawatts of electricity to South Sudan. Addis Ababa has also expressed to export surplus electricity to other neighboring countries, including, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somaliland, Uganda, Eritrea, and Sudan.

Beyond electricity generation, the dam is designed to mitigate the damages from seasonal flooding and control sedimentation by storing a large volumes of water during the rainy season and releasing it in a more regulated manner. This controlled flow is expected to particularly benefit Sudan, which frequently suffers from Nile-related flooding, and may also enhance agricultural productivity through improved water regulation.

In addition, the Ethiopian Dam represents a major African-led initiative and one of the largest renewable hydropower projects on the continent. It is expected to provide an affordable and sustainable source of electricity for Ethiopia, neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa, and the wider Eastern African region. Given the region’s longstanding development constraints, largely driven by limited access to reliable and affordable electricity, the dam has the potential to serve as a catalyst for industrialization, economic growth, and regional development among both Horn of Africa states and Nile riparian countries.

However, the dam also carries significant perceived risks, particularly for Egypt. Cairo argues it that any reduction in its annual Nile water allocation could negatively affect downstream water flows and agricultural production, potentially leading to crop failures, electricity shortages, and broader socio-economic instability. According to Egypt, even a 2 percent reduction in Nile water flows could result in the loss of approximately 200,000 acres of agricultural land, directly affecting hundreds of thousands of farming households and, by extension, nearly one million people. This dilemma underlines the core tension of the dispute; one nation’s development may translate into perceived existential risks for another. While GERD promises to alleviate electricity shortages for millions of Ethiopians, Egypt perceives the project as a threat to the livelihood of millions of its citizens.

One of the potential risks perceived by downstream states is the possibility that Ethiopia could politicize the dam and use it as a tool of security or economic pressure, effectively weaponizing its hydrological power over the Nile against neighboring countries, particularly Sudan and Egypt. Recent incidents from Sudan have reinforced these concerns. Shortly after the inauguration of the dam, Sudan experienced severe flooding, which Sudanese officials and observers attributed to water releases from the GERD that allegedly exceeded the safety threshold and operational assumptions.

More broadly, the Nile conflict has long been viewed as a potential catalyst for wider regional confrontation, including the risk of proxy conflicts. Beyond conventional military threats, the dispute has at times extended into cyberattacks and information warfare, aimed at undermining the positions of rival states. Although Ethiopia has completed the construction of the dam, filled the reservoir, and formally inaugurated the project, the risk of indirect confrontation between Egypt and Ethiopia has not entirely dissipated.

Egyptia’s recent strategic engagements in the Horn of Africa may be interpreted within this context. These include Cairo’s participation as a troop-contributing country in regional peacekeeping missions such as AUSSOM in Somalia, its involvement in emerging regional coalitions counterbalancing Ethiopia, its membership in the Red Sea Council, and its deepening diplomatic and infrastructure cooperation with Djibouti. Egypt and other littoral states have also openly opposed Ethiopia’s access to the sea, while simultaneously Cairo is alleged to involve the internal conflicts in Ethiopia. Taken together, these moves signal a broader pattern of geopolitical positioning amid intensifying competition in the Horn of Africa.

If the protracted dispute over the GERD remains unresolved through a consensual agreement between Ethiopia and downstream countries, tensions are likely to persist and may undermine Ethiopia’s long-term strategy of exporting surplus electricity to Nile riparian countries. There is also the possibility of renewed U.S.-led mediation efforts, reflecting recent statements by President Donald Trump expressing interest in the dispute. While Addis Ababa remains skeptical of Washington’s neutrality, both Khartoum and Cairo have welcomed renewed American engagement.

At the same time, new and complex geopolitical rivalries are emerging in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region. Most notably, Israeli’s move to officially recognizing Somaliland has generated strong opposition from Somalia-aligned coalitions, including Egypt, Turkey, Djibouti, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, as well as several Arab, regional, and Islamic multilateral organizations. These overlapping disputes risk further exacerbating hydropower politics, maritime competition, and chokepoint tensions in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.