The water issue has been a major driver of instability both in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. However, the zero-sum game that has been played by Egypt to ensure its water security over the years has become unsustainable, out of dated and irrelevant for the following reasons:
Creating jobs and feeding the rapidly growing population in the Horn of Africa and in the countries of the Nile Basin demands governments to generate power for industrialization and to transform traditional farming to mechanized irrigated farming to produce sufficient food to ensure food security which requires more consumption of water
The Aswan High dam only stores one-year flow of the Nile water, whereas global warming and other unpredictable climate changes could result in a drought that lasts to the biblical-proportion of up to seven years. In that case, the Aswan dam could dry with unimaginable consequences and makes Egypt’s current water security strategy null and void.
The growing population of Egypt also requires more water than the storage capacity of the High Aswan dam. That necessitates the construction of additional reservoir dams either in Ethiopia and/or Sudan (building an additional dam in Egypt is not practical). Egyptians are also considering other sources of water such us linking the Congo River with the White Nile and digging the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan which are good ideas but difficult to implement. If Egypt succeeds to dig the Jonglei Canal, the construction of dams on the Abay river is mandatory to regulate its flow and avoid flooding of Khartoum,
The Aswan high dam which has a water capacity of 130 billion (GERD stores about 74 billion) cubic meter, may be filled by silt within the next 300 to 500 years. How will Egypt manage such unavoidable fact with a huge population that is 95% dependent on the Nile water? In fact, the construction of dams in Ethiopia prolongs the service life of the Aswan dams by reducing accumulation of silt.
Considering the above points, it is expected that Egyptian water security strategists and the Egyptian government covertly want the construction of more dams (reservoirs) in Ethiopia as far as their so-called historical share is not significantly affected. They also know that dams built in Ethiopia along the deep Abay river canyon (1.4 km deep, more than 40 km wide and about 400 km long) could store thousands of billions cubic meter in water volume and could only be mainly used for hydroelectric power generation with lower evaporation loss and lower construction cost per volume. Therefore, instead of fighting for the 74 billion Cubic meter the GERD stores, discussing and negotiating about building additional mega dams that could generate more power and at same time be used as a “water bank” for the three countries that could store hundreds of billions of cubic meters over a longer period could solve the problem in a strategic and peaceful manner. Egypt and Sudan could help Ethiopia in reforestation of the Ethiopian Highlands to increase rainfall and the water discharge in the Abay river. Therefore, since Egypt is expected to support construction of more dams to be built in Ethiopia to use it as water reservoir, down scale the geopolitics and agree a tripartite “Commercial Agreement” with Egypt and Sudan that allows all countries to jointly build more dams on the Abay gorge and buy water from Ethiopia (after using their equitable share).