Are the present Aspirations of 135 million Ethiopians to generate electricity from their country’s water resources inferior to the distant fear of 118 million Egyptians potentially losing water security from the former’s damming the Blue Nile within its border?

Official Inauguration

With GERD filled, is Downstream Water Security at Risk?

Neither Sudan nor Egypt reported a reduction in Nile water flow since GERD started being filled in 2020 until the process ended in 2023. Therefore, sincere concerns about reduced downstream water flow should have been allayed, considering that Ethiopia must keep water flowing to turn the turbines to generate electricity needed to power homes and factories and to enable paying off financial bonds used to raise capital for this infrastructure. However, on September 9, 2025, the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the UNSC decrying Ethiopia’s celebration of GERD’s inauguration, which reveals how even the happiness of Ethiopians is not acceptable to Egypt’s leadership. This minister rushed to argue that the inauguration was an attempt to give the project a “veneer of legitimacy.” One wonders why Egypt thinks Ethiopia needs to seek legitimacy for a project implemented within its sovereign borders using its own........

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