Egypt: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
For many Egyptians, Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam is the cause of the country’s water stress.
Mahmoud Abdel Rahman in Cairo
Hassan Ashour stands in his fields in Beheira Governorate, staring at cracked earth that should have been irrigated two weeks ago. His crops are withering. “We haven’t found water in the canals for 15 days now and the water has been irregular for four months,” he says.
“I’ll try to extract water from underground but abandoning the land will never happen,” he adds. But groundwater isn’t rich in silt and nutrients like the water from the Nile, which affects crop quality.
Other farmers are reducing production or leaving land fallow during summer due to lack of reliable water, says Hussein Abdel Rahman, head of the Egyptian Farmers Union, which represents 500,000 farmers. Those in the desert hinterlands have to drill expensive wells.
Egypt needs about 81-billion cubic metres of water a year but officially receives only 55.5-billion from the Nile. With 112-million people and per-capita water availability at about 500 cubic metres a year – half the amount the United Nations defines as the “water poverty” line – the deficit is stark.
Agriculture is the biggest user of water in the country. The government has clamped down on growing rice, sugarcane, and bananas – water-hungry crops once central to Egypt’s agricultural economy. Rice, a former export earner, has shrunk from 700,000 hectares to less than half that since 2018, pushing up local prices fourfold.
“We used to grow rice before, but now it’s not possible because of water scarcity,” says Ashour. Farmers who defy restrictions risk heavy fines.
Ahmed Ibrahim is a farmer in Dakahlia Governorate, once one of Egypt’s top rice-producing areas. He’s had to make changes too. “With the tightening measures, I switched to growing sesame,” he said. When he made the switch in 2024, he was paid 95,000 Egyptian pounds a tonne. But as more farmers followed suit, oversupply drove prices down by 10,000 pounds.
For many Egyptians, Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam is the cause of the country’s water stress. Even Egyptian experts like Professor Abbas Sharaky at Cairo University argue that the dam’s reservoir has “cost Egypt about 30% of its water share”.
It is not a universal assessment. Other experts, like Khaled Gamal, a sustainability consultant in Cairo, blame Egypt’s population growth. Going from 20-million people in the 1960s to more 100-million now has meant more irrigation to produce more food.
But Sharaky’s assessment is a serious charge – one with many believers. “Egypt cannot coexist with any reduction in its water share,” said former irrigation minister Mohamed Nasr Allam. “This is not just about numbers. It is a direct threat to national security that could lead to consequences beyond imagination.”
To ease its water stress, Egypt has spent about 400-billion pounds (more than $8-billion at current exchange rates) on desalination, wastewater treatment, canal lining, and modern irrigation projects. That bill will be met by Egyptians through higher taxes, Sharaky says. And, as perceptions that Ethiopia caused the shortages take root, the government might throw in another tax-payer expense: troops in Somalia.
Officially, the planned Somalia deployment is to support Mogadishu’s fight against insurgent group al-Shabaab. Unofficially, Cairo is not taking the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam lying down.