Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced Friday that Ethiopia has successfully filled the third Great Nile Renaissance Dam.
The Nile “is our gift and it is Ethiopia’s responsibility to use it,” the prime minister said in a tweet, noting that the bsin three countries share this gift.
Abiy Ahmed reiterated that Ethiopia is working to ensure the benefits of the downstream countries, reads the tweet published by the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s office.
In July 2021, Ethiopia had completed the second filling of the Grand Renaissance Dam with more than 13.9 billion cubic meters of water.
During the first phase of the filling, which took place in July 2020, some 4.5 billion cubic meters of water were retained in the reservoir.
The gigantic Renaissance Dam, with a reservoir of 74 billion cubic meters, will have a power of 6000 megawatts after completion of the work, which will allow to cover all of Ethiopia’s electricity needs.
The Great Dam is located on the Blue Nile in Ethiopian territory, which together with the White Nile in Sudan, form the Nile that goes to Egypt, the blue river feeds up to 85 pc of the Nile waters.
In the various rounds of negotiations, Ethiopia has been committed to its rights, arguing that access to its water resources is “an existential necessity”. More than 65 million people are without electricity and a large part of them live in poverty, problems that can only be solved through this mega development project.