As Ethiopia expands GERD ambitions with new dams, Egypt has weaponised Red Sea access. Is there any hope for talks to resolve the standoff on the Nile?
Almost one year after Ethiopia inaugurated its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, Addis Ababa is looking to advance plans for three additional hydropower projects, prompting renewed warnings from downstream Egypt.
Ethiopia underlined its increasingly assertive position on August 21, when Water and Energy Minister Habtamu Itefa Gelata said Addis Ababa required no permission to develop its water resources, defended its right to equitable use of the Nile and rejected calls for joint management of GERD.
That has intensified concern in Egypt, which derives more than 97 percent of its renewable freshwater resources from the Nile, and has voiced alarm about Addis Ababa’s dam building.
In August, Egyptian officials, including the foreign and irrigation ministers, warned that Cairo would not “allow” any further dams on the Nile and reaffirmed Egypt’s right to defend its water security.
Ethiopia announced plans in March 2026 for three further Blue Nile hydropower projects (Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo) with a reported combined generating capacity of approximately 5,700 MW and an estimated total cost of $10.5 billion.
While these projects have alarmed Egypt, they remain in the planning and preconstruction stage, and their specifications could change. Furthermore, all three sites have featured in earlier Nile Basin studies, showing their current status is speculative.
The real change is Ethiopia is now confident enough to pursue further Blue Nile development, even as GERD remains unresolved with the downstream states Egypt and Sudan.
“For decades, Ethiopia had plans to develop its water and hydropower resources, but the combination of limited financing and Egypt’s opposition constrained those ambitions,” Tsedale Lemma, founder and editor-in-chief of the independent Ethiopian publication Addis Standard, told The New Arab.
GERD gave Ethiopia’s new dam plans greater political weight. Construction began in 2011 after Cairo was bogged down in the Egyptian revolution that year, while Ethiopia had pondered a dam for decades, although the threat of Egyptian military action had deterred it.
Its construction continued despite Egyptian and Sudanese objections and Ethiopia officially inaugurated the $5bn hydroelectric project on September 9, 2025, with 5,150 MW of installed capacity.
The latest plans point to a longer-term hydropower programme built around GERD, rather than just individual stand-alone dams.
Tsedale Lemma said the new proposals are likely to reinforce a view among many Ethiopians that the country “should be able to use its water resources for electricity, irrigation, food security and broader economic development, provided it does not deliberately cause significant harm to downstream states.”
This shift in outlook also shows up in the Cooperative Framework Agreement, which calls for a fairer sharing of the Nile’s water. While it entered into force in October 2024 it remains opposed by Egypt and Sudan, as Cairo demands a legally binding treaty.
However, concerns over how future downstream flows would be affected continue to fuel the political dispute.
Hydropower itself does not use up the water the way large irrigation projects do, since water simply passes through its turbines.
The problem lies with the reservoirs, which lose some water to evaporation, and their changing of the natural rhythm of the river can make downstream flows less predictable.
Yet like GERD, the three new dams do not have to be a zero-sum game if they are managed carefully.
“There was no harmful disruption of water to Egypt while filling the reservoir behind the GERD because of either normal or heavier than normal rainfall in the Nile Basin during this period,” David Shinn, former US ambassador to Ethiopia and adjunct professor at George Washington University, told The New Arab.
Yet he warned that “in the case of the three new dams, Ethiopia must manage with great care the reservoir filling process so as not to harm Egypt.”
In July, Sudan’s irrigation ministry recorded inflows to Roseires falling from 207 million to 129 million cubic metres per day between 7 and 9 July, attributing the temporary decline to reduced GERD discharges. Ethiopia did not confirm a cut.
This incident, along with the competing claims over flooding in late 2025, shows why advance notice, shared water data and agreed operating rules still matter after GERD.
Cairo is determined not to give up its own long-standing dominance over the Nile, however. And with an agreement remaining elusive, it has sought to pressure Ethiopia elsewhere in the region.
As landlocked Ethiopia also seeks maritime access via the Red Sea, Cairo has cultivated regional partnerships intended to temper Addis Ababa’s ambitions, viewing the maritime and Nile disputes as mutually reinforcing.
Egypt expanded military cooperation with Somalia following Ethiopia’s January 2024 memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, which offered maritime access in exchange for eventual recognition of the breakaway region.
Although Turkey’s Ankara Declaration in December 2024 defused the immediate confrontation and helped restore ties between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu, Ethiopia’s pursuit of dependable maritime access remains unresolved.
Cairo has therefore expanded ties with Eritrea as relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have again deteriorated. The neighbours fought a devastating border war from 1998 to 2000, five years after Eritrea’s independence which left Ethiopia without sea access.
In May, Egypt and Eritrea signed a maritime transport agreement and agreed to establish a shipping line connecting their Red Sea ports.
During a Cairo summit in June, Sisi and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki pledged to intensify coordination over Red Sea security and affirmed that governance should remain the exclusive responsibility of littoral states, a position implicitly opposing any Ethiopian naval role in the waterway.
There is a risk of a vicious cycle in which Egyptian engagement with these countries fuels Ethiopian fears of encirclement, hardening Addis Ababa’s position and pushing a negotiated settlement over the Nile further out of reach.
Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey are perhaps best to facilitate dialogue, given their ties with both Ethiopia and Egypt.
Riyadh offered to mediate in 2021, and Turkey’s recent Horn of Africa diplomacy has placed it in a stronger position to facilitate talks. However, neither state currently leads a formal process.
China’s growing diplomatic footprint in the region adds another possible mediator to the mix. President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Egypt on 1–3 September 2026, his first in a decade, produced a joint statement in which Beijing explicitly recognised the Nile as Egypt’s “lifeline” and affirmed Cairo’s “legitimate right” to protect its water and food security under international law, while calling on all Nile Basin countries to refrain from harming downstream states. Historically seen in Addis Ababa as relatively neutral—or even tilted toward Ethiopia, given Beijing’s role as a major infrastructure financier, this new, explicit backing for Egypt’s water-security claims could give China fresh leverage as a potential bridge between the two capitals, especially if it couples political support with technical offers such as desalination cooperation and remote-sensing assistance.
Beijing’s Belt and Road ties with both countries and its recent push to position itself as a neutral security broker in the Middle East could allow it to convene talks that address both Nile sharing and broader Horn of Africa issues, including Ethiopia’s maritime access and Red Sea security.
For talks to succeed, however, any mediator would need to win Addis Ababa’s confidence rather than appear simply to endorse Cairo’s position.
Tsedale Lemma said Addis Ababa sees the dispute as a clash between Cairo’s invocation of “established water rights” and Ethiopia’s demand for equitable, basin-wide use. Ethiopia also fears that rules governing GERD could become “a de facto permanent Nile-water allocation treaty” restricting future upstream projects.
During Donald Trump’s first Presidential term, Washington appeared to validate those fears.
In February 2020, after Ethiopia skipped the final talks and requested more time, the US Treasury went ahead with Egypt and Sudan, called the proposed deal balanced, and warned Ethiopia against filling GERD without an agreement. Washington later froze up to $100 million in aid when Ethiopia started filling the reservoir.
Trump’s subsequent suggestion that Egypt might “blow up” GERD certainly compounded that mistrust. From Ethiopia’s perspective, the facilitator had become an advocate for Cairo’s position.
In January 2026, Trump offered to restart US mediation over Nile water-sharing. Sisi and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan welcomed the proposal, but it has yet to produce an announced negotiating process. So far, diplomacy remains frozen despite Ethiopia’s determination to pursue new projects on the Nile.
Still, with the Nile dispute becoming increasingly interlinked with broader Horn of Africa security, addressing Addis Ababa’s concerns over maritime access may need to form part of any broader settlement.
“One issue that would get Ethiopia’s attention on a Nile water compromise would be Egyptian engagement with Eritrea for negotiating permanent Ethiopian access to the Red Sea,” said David Shinn.
He cautioned, however, that it was difficult to see what Egypt would gain from such an arrangement, while Eritrea would also require substantial incentives.
Beyond such a bargain, Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, argued that the dams themselves could create incentives for cooperation.
“Additional dams could also create interdependence: coordinated reservoirs can regulate flows, reduce floods, produce electricity and support regional power trade with Sudan and Egypt,” he told The New Arab. “Which path is taken will depend less on the dams themselves than on how they are planned and operated.”
“Transparency, advance consultation, shared data, agreed drought-time water-sharing rules and Egyptian access to Ethiopian electricity would encourage cooperation; unilateral construction, threats, domestic nationalism and competition over ports, Somalia and the Red Sea would deepen confrontation,” Swain added.
Jonathan Fenton-Harvey is a journalist and researcher who focuses on conflict, geopolitics and humanitarian issues in the Middle East and North Africa.
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