Small is beautiful but not trendy: Understanding the allure of big hydraulic works in the Euphrates-Tigris and Nile waterscapes

ABSTRACT

The number of massive hydraulic infrastructures such as large-scale dams, huge hydropower plants, and broad irrigation networks has increased to an unprecedented level during the twentieth century. While the trend has recently slowed, building giant water infrastructures is still an utmost priority in many parts of the world across state elites. Informed by insights from major transboundary waterscapes – the river basins of the Euphrates-Tigris and the Nile – this paper analyses how states´ elites justify their hydraulic mission, finding that four distinctive discursive practices are efficiently used in the case studies: securitization, opportunization, de-politicization, and framing.

KEYWORDS:

• Middle East and North Africa
• hydraulic infrastructures
• water policy
• hydraulic mission
• hydropolitics

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr. Kevin Wheeler from the University of Oxford for his valuable feedback on previous drafts of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The extent to which small dams are more sustainable depends also on the location, ecosystems, and on one’s definition of ‘sustainable’.

2. From ‘The World Bank in Ethiopia’ (retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ethiopia/overview).

3. Peter Kagwanja (Kenya’s Africa Policy Institute, President), 17 December 2019 (retrieved from https://africacheck.org), building on IMF’s World Economic Outlook database.

4. The public investment rate rose from about 5 per cent in the early 1990s to 18.6 per cent of GDP in 2011, making it the third highest in the world (World Bank, 2016).

5. The average growth rate of Ethiopia’s federal budget was 22.4% in the past decade (UNDP, 2018).

6. Both in terms of power generating capacity (from 4,180 MW in 2014/15 to 17,208 MW by 2019/20) and energy production (from 9,515.27GWH in 2014/15 to 63,207GWH by 2019/20) (GTP II: 179).

7. In 2018 the average value of the HDI (Human Development Index) for the Nile Basin countries (0,509) was lower than the average of the entire Sub-Saharan Africa (0,537). See UNDP, Human Development Indices and Indicators. 2018 Statistical Update, New York, 2018, UN Development Programme.

8. NBI 2016, op. cit.

9. Based on an estimated runoff of 82 bcm per year and total losses in 8 bcm, the 1959 Agreement for the full utilization of the water of the Nile allocated an annual quota of 55.5 bcm to Egypt and 18.5 bcm to Sudan.

10. Mohamed Abdel Aty, Egypt’s minister of water resources and irrigation, quoted in: The ‘water war’ brewing over the new River Nile dam, BBC News, 24 February 2018.

11. M. Zenawi, former Ethiopian PM, during his GERD’s launching speech in 2 April 2011.

12. Originally expected to become operational by the end of 2018, the GERD is reportedly between 70 and 80 per cent complete (at the time of writing, summer 2020). According to Ethiopian governmental sources, the dam started filling operations in May 2020.

13. The largest (existing and operational) hydropower plants in Africa are currently the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Cahora Bassa in Mozambique (with installed capacity of 2,100 MW and 2,075 MW, respectively).

14. Quoted from the Salini-Impregilo’s project webpage.

Additional information

Funding

Hussam Hussein was supported by the Oxford Martin School Programme on Transboundary Resource Management, University of Oxford. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors.