(Jan 13, 2012, Alaska Dispatch)--In the western fringe of Ethiopia on the banks of the Blue Nile river, the nation's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi thundered that the country would overcome all obstacles to complete Africa's largest hydropower plant.
"No matter how poor we are, in the Ethiopian traditions of resolve, the Ethiopian people will pay any sacrifice," he said. "I have no doubt they will, with one voice, say: 'Build the Dam!'"
The government portrays the dam as a 5,900-foot long, 475-foot high beacon of progress that will banish the country's reputation for famine and dependency. The $4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will lift the country out of poverty, the government argues, by electrifying the country's industrialization and making
Ethiopia a regional power-hub - and all without a drop of the aid Ethiopia is synonymous in the West for. But critics worry that the country may have taken self-sufficiency and ambition a bit too far in the way it pushed ahead with its largest-ever project unilaterally and with little transparent planning.
Secrecy has shrouded the 5,250-megawatt plant, nearly 20 miles from the Sudanese border. Although the site was identified in 1964, the decision to go ahead with what had been known as Project X became public less than a month before construction began on April 2. Its unveiling shocked a host of interested parties.
At a launch in Addis Ababa, the Egyptian embassy's spokesman was astonished to learn a reservoir more than twice the size of Singapore would be created by a barrage Cairo had not been consulted on. Over four-fifths of the water for the Nile, Egypt's lifeblood, comes from Ethiopia's highlands, leading to historic tensions over usage.
Also uninformed was the Eastern Africa Power Pool, which was just putting the finishing touches on a regional integration study that leans heavily on exported Ethiopian hydropower. "We look forward to getting more information so we can factor it into our master plan,” Jasper Oduor, its Executive Secretary, said. Read more from Alaska Dispatch »
"No matter how poor we are, in the Ethiopian traditions of resolve, the Ethiopian people will pay any sacrifice," he said. "I have no doubt they will, with one voice, say: 'Build the Dam!'"
The government portrays the dam as a 5,900-foot long, 475-foot high beacon of progress that will banish the country's reputation for famine and dependency. The $4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will lift the country out of poverty, the government argues, by electrifying the country's industrialization and making
Ethiopia a regional power-hub - and all without a drop of the aid Ethiopia is synonymous in the West for. But critics worry that the country may have taken self-sufficiency and ambition a bit too far in the way it pushed ahead with its largest-ever project unilaterally and with little transparent planning.
Secrecy has shrouded the 5,250-megawatt plant, nearly 20 miles from the Sudanese border. Although the site was identified in 1964, the decision to go ahead with what had been known as Project X became public less than a month before construction began on April 2. Its unveiling shocked a host of interested parties.
At a launch in Addis Ababa, the Egyptian embassy's spokesman was astonished to learn a reservoir more than twice the size of Singapore would be created by a barrage Cairo had not been consulted on. Over four-fifths of the water for the Nile, Egypt's lifeblood, comes from Ethiopia's highlands, leading to historic tensions over usage.
Also uninformed was the Eastern Africa Power Pool, which was just putting the finishing touches on a regional integration study that leans heavily on exported Ethiopian hydropower. "We look forward to getting more information so we can factor it into our master plan,” Jasper Oduor, its Executive Secretary, said. Read more from Alaska Dispatch »
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