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Regional Mediation in African Transboundary Rivers Conflicts: Assessing the African Union’s Role in the Renaissance Dam Negotiations
Abstract
In April 2021, Egypt and Sudan announced the failure of the African Union ( au )-led negotiations over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam ( gerd ). Why did the au fail to achieve progress on the contested issues in spite of the parties’ rhetorical commitment to settle these issues, the mediation capacity that the au developed over the last decade, and its comparative advantage as a regional organization close to the dispute? This article addresses this question. It integrates regional conflict resolution literature and water diplomacy approaches to identify the conditions of successful mediation in transboundary water conflicts, a task which contributes to ongoing au efforts to learn from past mediation experiences.
... Various attempts to forge peaceful negotiations between the three conflict countries have been held by various international bodies [18]. These include: The US and the World Bank (proposed an agreement on filling and dam operation)-Ethiopia left the meeting criticizing the observers for being impartial; African Union (AU)-Led Process (welcomed the commitment of the three parties), however, was contradicted by Ethiopia and assured immediate filling of the dam; Egypt took GERD issues to United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Ethiopia replied that GERD does not have "a legitimate place in the Security Council", in this regard, UNSC embarked AU to take the lead though its position was doubted by Egypt. ...
This policy brief portrays potential risks if not solved urgently using holistic approaches, that the GERD dam can cause to the peace and regional stability of the Horn of Africa. It focuses on diplomatic issues, and provides recommendations that can be picked by IGAD
... Regarding the negotiations of the GERD, Seide and Fantini (2023) focus on the emotions in water diplomacy, Yimer and Subaşı (2021) analyze Trump's "speech act" during the negotiations, and Tawfik (2023) assesses the African Union's role in the negotiations. Nevertheless, the academic literature is still limited to have a collective study on the role of the Nile River in Egyptian Foreign Policy. ...
Egypt has been one of the most significant countries in the Nile Basin in terms of the hydropolitics of the Nile River. Since Egypt is downstream and Ethiopia is an upstream country having main sources of the Nile waters in the basin, Egyptian water utilization has been highly dependent on the water resources that come from the Ethiopian highlands. Since Ethiopia lacked the financial and economic capacity to effectively utilize the Nile River, Egypt has been the leading exploiting country of the Nile waters. However, the Ethiopians’ infrastructural projects, such as the construction of hydroelectric dams, have been considered a national security threat by the Egyptian foreign policy decision�makers. Therefore, the developments in the Nile River and Egyptian water security have been chief foreign policy concerns for Egypt. In this context, this study mainly addresses the role of the Nile River in Egyptian foreign policy based on international, regional, and domestic factors. Deploying the descriptive qualitative method, it analyses how the dam constructions and developments regarding water sharing and distribution in the Nile
Basin have shaped Egypt’s foreign policy throughout the historical process. It utilizes
primary and secondary resources such as the original texts of the historical agreements,
official statements, memoirs, and related books and articles in the literature.
Keywords: Egypt, Ethiopia, Nile River, Egyptian Foreign Policy.
... Regarding the negotiations of the GERD, Seide and Fantini (2023) focus on the emotions in water diplomacy, Yimer and Subaşı (2021) analyze Trump's "speech act" during the negotiations, and Tawfik (2023) assesses the African Union's role in the negotiations. Nevertheless, the academic literature is still limited to have a collective study on the role of the Nile River in Egyptian Foreign Policy. ...
Egypt has been one of the most significant countries in the Nile Basin in terms of the hydropolitics of the Nile River. Since Egypt is downstream and Ethiopia is an upstream country having main sources of the Nile waters in the basin, Egyptian water utilization has been highly dependent on the water resources that come from the Ethiopian highlands. Since Ethiopia lacked the financial and economic capacity to effectively utilize the Nile River, Egypt has been the leading exploiting country of the Nile waters. However, the Ethiopians’ infrastructural projects, such as the construction of hydroelectric dams, have been considered a national security threat by the Egyptian foreign policy decision-makers. Therefore, the developments in the Nile River and Egyptian water security have been chief foreign policy concerns for Egypt. In this context, this study mainly addresses the role of the Nile River in Egyptian foreign policy based on international, regional, and domestic factors. Deploying the descriptive qualitative method, it analyses how the dam constructions and developments regarding water sharing and distribution in the Nile Basin have shaped Egypt’s foreign policy throughout the historical process. It utilizes primary and secondary resources such as the original texts of the historical agreements, official statements, memoirs, and related books and articles in the literature.
Global environmental imaginaries such as “the climate crisis” and “water wars” dominate the discussion on African states and their predicament in the face of global warming and unmet demands for sustainable livelihoods. I argue that the intersecting challenges of water, energy, and food insecurity are providing impetus for the articulation of ambitious state-building projects, in the Nile Basin as elsewhere, that rework regional political geographies and expand “infrastructural power”–the ways in which the state can penetrate society, control its territory, and implement consequential policies. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam should be understood as intending to alter how the state operates, domestically and internationally; how it is seen by its citizens; and how they relate to each other and to their regional neighbors. To legitimize such material and ideational transformations and reposition itself in international politics, the Ethiopian party-state has embedded the dam in a discourse of “environmental justice”: a rectification of historical and geographical ills to which Ethiopia and its impoverished masses were subjected. However, critics have adopted their own environmental justice narratives to denounce the failure of Ethiopia's developmental model and its benefiting of specific ethnolinguistic constituencies at the expense of the broader population.
The Nile River Basin, with eleven riparian countries, lacks any agreed-upon basin-wide legal framework. Attempts at effective management and utilization of water resources inclusive of all countries along the basin have not been possible due to lack of consensus on the legal basis of already exiting colonial-era agreements that allocate an absolute share of the Nile water to Egypt and Sudan by excluding most of the upper riparians. The review has specifically focused on the trilateral negotiation processes between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt since November 2019 on the filling and annual operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia has been constructing since 2011. It has made a thorough review of a series of events and processes through which the negotiation has passed to conduct a critical analysis of facts, and has suggested reflections on the way forward. It considers the need for political will and flexibility of the negotiating parties to reconcile existing contradictory positions. To this end, pursuing a revisionist approach to take the dynamic socio-economic realities and development needs of co-basin countries is commendable. This further requires renegotiating long existed colonial-era agreements and formulating a basin-wide legal framework in line with existing international standards. Focusing on technical and expertise level of discussions and outcomes would minimize over politicization and specifically would help to address the negative impacts of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and optimize positive externalities. Peace is a necessity than any other option among the co-basin countries and the only avenue towards sustainable resolution of disputes. Negotiating in good faith and in a ‘give and take’ modality needs to be a second to none alternative to the parties. The international community may also need to play a neutral and genuine role to assist the parties to settle their differences amicably and reach a final negotiated settlement.
When construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is completed, the Nile will have two of the world’s largest dams—the High Aswan Dam (HAD) and the GERD—in two different countries (Egypt and Ethiopia). There is not yet agreement on how these dams will operate to manage scarce water resources. We elucidate the potential risks and opportunities to Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia by simulating the filling period of the reservoir; a new normal period after the reservoir fills; and a severe multi-year drought after the filling. Our analysis illustrates how during filling the HAD reservoir could fall to levels not seen in recent decades, although the risk of water shortage in Egypt is relatively low. The new normal will benefit Ethiopia and Sudan without significantly affecting water users in Egypt. Management of multi-year droughts will require careful coordination if risks of harmful impacts are to be minimized.
Climate-related security risks are increasingly compounding existing political, social and economic challenges worldwide, with natural resources like water posing risks for geopolitical tensions and violent conflict. This report presents a regional analysis of environment, peace and security linkages in the Horn of Africa, with a specific focus on water security and governance. It provides entry points for the international community to address the multifaceted risk landscape in the region.
The Horn of Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change such as droughts and floods. The transboundary water resources of the Nile and Juba–Shabelle river basins are of core relevance for the Horn of Africa because of the interaction and confluence of several political, social, economic and environmental processes. The tensions surrounding transboundary water resources retain the potential for geopolitical tensions and violent conflict within and among countries in the region.
Posing challenges to peace and development in every continent, water security and governance can no longer be left unaddressed by the international community. This report identifies political constraints and possible entry points for the international community to address the multidimensional challenge of water security and governance in the Horn of Africa.
Discussion Paper, Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
This article systematically examines the varying effectiveness of African and non-African third parties in mediating civil wars in Africa. Drawing on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, supplemented with unique data on mediation efforts, which together cover all mediation efforts in civil wars in Africa between 1960 and 2012, this article presents quantitative evidence supporting the effectiveness of African third parties. Compared to non-African third parties, African third parties are far more likely to conclude peace agreements and these peace agreements are more likely to be durable. Most effective, however, are mixed mediation efforts in which there is coordination between African and non-African third parties, but in which African third parties take the lead. The phrase, ‘African solutions to African challenges’ should thus be understood as a division of labour and responsibilities, rather than an excuse for non-African third parties to ignore Africa’s problems or African third parties acting on their own. Indeed, whilst African third parties should take the lead in mediation processes in African civil wars, non-African third parties should support these processes by lending additional strength. Through supplementing each other’s comparative advantages, African and non-African third parties can more effectively resolve civil wars in Africa.
Egypt, SudanSudanand EthiopiaEthiopia have been negotiating for nearly a decade to reach an agreement on key technical and legal issues related to the impact of the GERD. Some of the major milestones in the negotiationTransboundary water negotiation process are: the formation of the International Panel of ExpertsInternational Panel of Experts (IPOE)), Declaration of PrinciplesDeclaration of Principles, formation of a Joint Research Group, involvement of the USAUnited States and the World BankWorld Bank to observe tripartite talks and the request by EgyptEgypt to the United Nations Security CouncilUnited Nations Security Council to intervene. The outstanding issues to be resolved include: droughtMitigationmitigationDrought mitigation, binding agreementBinding agreement, dam safety and dispute resolution. African UnionAfrican Union (AU) has been approached to intervene in the dispute. The involvement of AU provides an opportunity for the continental peace architectural framework through three ways: the Assembly of Heads of state and government which is the AU’s supreme policy and decision-making organ, the AU Peace and Security Council (APSC)AU Peace and Security Council (APSC) which is the pinnacle of the AU architecture framework of conflict prevention, management and resolution and the involvement of COMESACommon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) which is the largest Regional Economic Community of the African UnionAfrican Union aimed at promoting regional integration through trade and the development of natural and human resources. The main purpose of the chapter is to analyse how the AU peace building frameworks can be used to resolve the GERD dispute. The chapter will explain how the AU frameworks can be used to promote integrated and sustainable management outcomes and the significant steps of dispute resolution mechanisms that can be taken through the AU framework.
Abstract
The history of the Nile water use for agriculture has been associated only with Egypt and Sudan. The upstream countries have mostly managed with rain-fed agriculture with limited consumptive use withdrawal from the Nile River and tributaries. Now, global water stress has increased along with the water demand created by rapid population growth and climate change. According to the World Economic forum, at the 2017 rate, there will be a 40% gap between global water supply and demand by 2030. According to the UN in 2019, 2 billion people live under water stress and 2.2 billion do not have access to safe water. As a result, economically strong countries without freshwater supply have been observed acquiring land and water direct and indirectly for food and fodder production for their growing population. The Nile River basin, especially the Eastern Nile, is currently facing water conflict triggered by Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, an assertion of upstream water right. The historical uneven social, economic, and military development between Europe and Africa resulted in the colonization and domination of Africa. Through long struggle and sacrifice, colonialism was driven out of Africa. But attempts are being made to keep alive colonial remnant water treaties and agreements by former colonies that benefit from them. Egypt has been aggressively frustrating upstream water projects by blocking funding mechanism and other coercive ways. The Nyerere doctrine on state succession to colonial treaties concluded that the former colonies are not bound by colonial water treaties. By 2011, Ethiopia initiated the self-financed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) with storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metre and design power generation of 6000 MW. The dam is located close to Sudan and within three years of completion. Dam filling and operation plan negotiations have sparked conflict mainly between Ethiopia and Egypt. The cause for dragging the negotiations is the implicit position of Egypt that no upstream country has right for a share of the rivers that flow through their territories. Egypt’s GERD dam filling and operation proposals have ingenuously embedded minimum water guarantee issues camouflaged with droughts and prolonged droughts terms. A series of meetings was conducted between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to agree upon dam filling and operation plans with mediators and without mediators. The meetings end mostly with Egypt withdrawing when agreement was reported close to finish and the whole process to start all over again with new demands. Sudan is upstream of Egypt and downstream of Ethiopia and initially supporting the project but later was influenced to put challenges to the dam filling. Two of the negotiations on the GERD, the Washington D.C. and the African Union negotiations, are presented with implications of some of the proposals. The Declaration of Principles (DOP) signed on 23 March 2015 after several meetings was the first attempt to move the model of relationship from hostility to cooperation. This chapter analyses global and Nile Basin water stress and put in context the negotiations on GERD. Upstream and downstream transboundary relationships are analysed, and major issues of water share, dam filling, and dam operation are presented. Egypt’s extended use of Nile water with trans-basin and trans-continental water transfer to the Toshka Valley and Sinai Peninsula is creating or could create water shortage to the traditional Egyptian farmer, caused by water use policy. Water policy may favour hard cash earning large farms, usually owned by foreign investors, at the expense of the traditional small irrigation farms. Water shortage at the small farms created by Egypt’s water policy that favors big farms and transfer of water out of the Nile Basin can be blamed on upstream countries and dams specially on the GERD and Sudan.
The preponderant focus of the negotiations between Ethiopia and Egypt over the use of the Nile/the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is on material aspects of water security, ignoring non-material, emotional attachments. Using ontological security as an analytical lens, it is argued that the GERD will lead to re-structuring Egypt’s state identity conception while potentially serving as an anchor to Ethiopia’s changing ontological security. If the negotiations are to transform interactions and build a cooperative routinized relationship more time and resources should be spent on building trust, especially in constructing more compatible state identities.
The Nile River Basin, with ten riparian countries, lacks any agreed-upon basin-wide legal framework. Attempts at effective management and utilization of water resources inclusive of all countries along the basin have not been possible due to lack of consensus on the legal basis of already exiting colonial-era agreements that allocate an absolute share of the Nile water to Egypt and Sudan by excluding most of the upper riparians. The review has specifically focused on the trilateral negotiation processes between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt since November 2019 on the filling and annual operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia has been constructing since 2011. It has made a thorough review of a series of events and processes through which the negotiation has passed to conduct a critical analysis of facts, and has suggested reflections on the way forward. It considers the need for political will and flexibility of the negotiating parties to reconcile existing contradictory positions. To this end, pursuing a revisionist approach to take the dynamic socio-economic realities and development needs of co-basin countries is commendable. This further requires renegotiating long existed colonial-era agreements and formulating a basin-wide legal framework in line with existing international standards. Focusing on technical and expertise level of discussions and outcomes would minimize over politicization and specifically would help to address the negative impacts of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and optimize positive externalities. Peace is a necessity than any other option among the co-basin countries and the only avenue towards sustainable resolution of disputes. Negotiating in good faith and in a ‘give and take’ modality needs to be a second to none alternative to the parties. The international community may also need to play a neutral and genuine role to assist the parties to settle their differences amicably and reach a final negotiated settlement.
Although informal and traditionally driven practices of mediation have existed for many generations, institutionalized and African-driven mediation became more important following the end of the Cold War. Mediation initiatives undertaken over the past 25 years, partly as a consequence of the increase in intra-state conflicts on the continent, have resulted in the generation of a deep body of knowledge and the evolution of a community of practitioners. This article examines two of the first post-1990 African-driven mediation processes-The Arusha Peace Process for Burundi and the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (icd) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (drc)-to highlight key lessons that emerged, including the choice of mediator, who to include in the mediation, the impact of regional and international dynamics on the mediation, the importance and challenges of addressing the root causes of the conflict in a mediation process, and the role of non-state actors and Track ii diplomacy.
A new hydro-political order is emerging in the Nile Basin. Upstream riparian states have improved their bargaining power vis-à-vis downstream countries by adopting a common position in the negotiations over a new framework agreement to govern the utilisation of the Nile waters. Some upstream riparians have unilaterally constructed hydraulic projects that threaten Egypt’s hegemonic position in the basin, the most notable of which is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Whether these developments will lead to a more equitable utilisation of water resources and a more cooperative order will depend on the policies of the riparian states, especially in the Eastern Nile. Respect of the Declaration of Principles on the GERD signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan could help build trust between the three countries after years of tensions around the project. Beyond that, a basin-wide plan for the utilisation of water resources would not only maximise the benefits from the river and address the common challenges facing the basin, but also reduce the political costs of tensions on future projects.
Mediation has been used to settle international conflicts ranging from sovereignty disputes between centuries-old enemies, to battles over the independence of colonies, to struggles over the use of natural resources. In a majority of the wars fought since 1945 involving at least 100 fatalities, the disputing parties accepted the intervention of a mediator.1 During this same period, mediation was attempted in about two-thirds of the conflicts among the nations of Africa and Latin America and 80 per cent of the conflicts in the Middle East.2 During the last forty years, mediation has been central to American foreign policy. Nearly every American administration has dispatched mediators to help resolve conflicts abroad.
Negotiations over the GERD have not transformed the debate in the Eastern Nile from sharing water to sharing benefits. Nationalistic discourse used by the three governments, the political sensitivity of the Nile issue, cautious Egyptian approach towards Eastern Nile cooperation beyond the project, divisions within policy circles in Egypt on dealing with the project and with the NBI as a framework of cooperation, the failure of Egypt to adapt its water policies to expected changes in the post-GERD era, and the new power asymmetries in the Eastern Nile have affected, and will continue to affect, positions in ongoing negotiations, making it more difficult to reach a benefit-sharing deal.
It is generally accepted that conflicting demands over international rivers will intensify. There is an active debate on whether this will lead to "water wars" or to unprecedented cooperation. Framing the debate in this manner, however tends to cast the concept of cooperation as all-or-nothing, implying that "cooperation" is an extreme, in direct opposition to "war" This conceptual construct obscures the many practical levels of cooperation that states can undertake to their mutual advantage. It is important to recognize that it is entirely rational that states will always have a "national agenda" for a river that they share with other states, and that they will cooperate if it serves that national agenda. In practice, there can be a continuum of levels of cooperation, from simple information sharing, to joint ownership and management of infrastructure investments. Furthermore, it may not necessarily be the case that "more" cooperation reaps "more" benefits in all river basins. There are many different types of benefits that can be secured through the cooperative management of international waters, with each individual basin offering different potential cooperative benefits with different associated costs. For each international basin, the optimal mode of cooperation will depend on a mix of factors including hydrologic characteristics, the economics of cooperative investments, numbers and the relationships of riparians, and the costs of parties coming together.
In 1989, a secretive movement of Islamists allied itself to a military cabal to violently take power in Africa’s biggest country. Sudan’s revolutionary regime was built on four pillars — a new politics, economic liberalisation, an Islamic revival, and a U–turn in foreign relations — and mixed militant conservatism with social engineering: a vision of authoritarian modernisation. Water and agricultural policy have been central to this state-building project. Going beyond the conventional lenses of famine, “water wars” or the oil resource curse, Harry Verhoeven links environmental factors, development, and political power. Based on years of unique access to the Islamists, generals, and business elites at the core of the Al–Ingaz Revolution, Verhoeven tells the story of one of Africa’s most ambitious state–building projects in the modern era — and how its gamble to instrumentalise water and agriculture to consolidate power is linked to twenty–first–century globalisation, Islamist ideology, and intensifying geopolitics of the Nile.
Mediation research has for a long time been divided on whether 'power mediators' or 'pure mediators' are preferred as peace brokers in armed conflicts. This study contributes by drawing a broader empirical picture of international mediation in civil wars. It is argued that these approaches to international mediation are complementary rather than contradictory, and that combining power mediators with pure mediators should be the best way of enhancing the prospect of mediation success. Using data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program on internal armed conflicts (1989-2003), the study examines and compares the effect of power mediators with pure mediators on different kinds of mediation outcomes: (1) the likelihood that parties reach agreements and (2) the provisions of those agreements. The study finds that although all types of mediators have a positive effect in terms of reaching agreements, power mediators outperform pure mediators. Most effective are the mediation attempts when both power and pure mediators are active as third parties. Examining the content of agreements, the study finds that pure mediators are more effective in reaching political and territorial power sharing provisions, whereas power mediators are more likely to be associated with military pacts.
Interview with Al-Jazeera News Channel, January 23
- Yasser Abbas
“Exploring the Feasibility of the Jordan-Israel Energy and Water Deal,”
- Mohammed Mahmoud
The mena Powers and the Nile Basin Initiative
- Simon Okoth
“Regionalism in the Post-cold War Era,”
- Joseph Lepgold
“Interregionalism and Multiparty Mediation: The Case of Arab Africa.”
- Marco Pinfari
“Some Conceptual Issues Regarding the Study of Inter-state Relationships in the Nile Basin,”
- Terje Tvedt
“Trilateral Negotiations Over a Dam on the Blue Nile: US Meddling and the ‘Role’ of the UN Security Council,”
- Zeray Yihdego
“The au and the Drive for Mediation Support.”
- Manuel Bustamante
- Gustavo De Carvalho
Public Briefing on the Latest Developments in gerd Negotiations and Related Water Issues
- Saleh Hamad
“Regional Conflict Management: Strategies, Necessary Conditions, and Comparative Effectiveness,”
- Paul Diehl
“Managing Water Negotiations and Conflicts in Concept and Practice,”
- Todd Jarvis
- Aaron Wolf
“Mediation in African Conflicts: The Gap between Mandate and Capacity.”
- Laurie Nathan
“Good Office and Mediation and International Water Conflicts,”
- M Salman
- Salman