AMN Plus-August 21, 2026
Ethiopia’s Water and Energy Minister Habtamu Itefa says Ethiopia does not need permission from anyone to develop its water resources, while insisting that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is primarily a hydropower project whose benefits extend across the region.
“Ethiopia is a sovereign country,” Habtamu said. “Who said that we are going to ask them permission? Because we built the GERD without the permission, and we will do it also if we need on other river basins.”
In an Exclusive interview with The Pulse of Africa, Habtamu said the GERD was built solely for electricity generation and argued that its impact goes beyond Ethiopia through regional power exports.
“The intention of this dam is purely for hydropower generation,” he said. “The spillover is also for the region, not only for Ethiopia.”
He said Ethiopia has been supplying electricity to neighboring countries including Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan while demand is also growing from Somalia and South Sudan.
“The Kenyans are demanding more than what really we could give them,” Habtamu said. “If we take from Somalia, there is a big demand, but not yet connected, so we are working on it. In South Sudan, there is a big demand.”
The Minister also defended Ethiopia’s approach to Nile Basin cooperation, citing the Nile Basin Initiative and the Cooperative Framework Agreement as examples of efforts to promote shared use of the river.
He said Ethiopia has been “too generous” in developing the Nile tributaries, adding that, unlike in other trans boundary river basins where downstream countries often lead cooperation efforts, Ethiopia has taken the lead in bringing Nile Basin countries together.
“In case of Nile, it is the reverse. It is Ethiopia who has been trying to have initiative, let’s cooperate, let’s work together,” he said.
Ethiopia has also refrained from developing potentially irrigable land immediately downstream of the GERD, arguing that this demonstrates consideration for downstream countries, he added.
“Technically, below the downstream, we have more than 230,000 hectares of land, irrigable,” he said. “We are not doing that because we know there is a demand from downstream side.”
Habtamu maintained that water released from the GERD continues downstream after electricity generation.
“Whatever released from GERD, after getting it down, after getting the power, is automatically going to our brothers on downstream side,” he said.
The minister rejected calls for joint management of the GERD, saying Ethiopia would not accept arrangements that would give other countries control over the dam.
“How comes the dam that has been built by Ethiopians, that has been our proud, and we say, a national pride project, someone who has been opposing the movement, come and say, we will manage together?” he said.
“It is impossible, totally impossible, unthinkable,” Habtamu added.
He said Ethiopia’s position is that Nile Basin countries should negotiate and cooperate rather than seek to restrict Ethiopia’s development of its own water resources, according to Pulse of Africa.
