Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced Sunday that his country will build more than 100 small and medium sized dams in different regions of Ethiopia during the upcoming fiscal year.
The official Ethiopian News Agency quoted Abi Ahmed as saying that this is the only way to resist any forces opposed to Ethiopia.
Abiy’s announcement followed after after he laid the foundation stone for the construction of the first phase of Adama-Awash expressway project. The 130 kilometers expressway comes as part of the Ethiopia-Djibouti Transport Corridor Project regional network serving Djibouti, Somaliland and Eritrea.
The Ethiopian PM explained that these new dams will play an effective role in agricultural production, which ranges from three times a year in order to ensure food security.
He said that Ethiopians from all spectrum of society must join together for the sake of their nation’s development.
With regard to Ethiopia’s relationship with the rest of the world, Abiy said that the voices recently heard against Ethiopia are not based on realistic facts and aim to undermine Ethiopia’s long-standing diplomatic relations on the global stage, whatever the matter.
Ethiopia started constructing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River, one of the tributaries to Nile River, in 2011. Egypt considers the GERD to be one of its most serious water issues.
Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have held several rounds of negotiations over the past decade, but have ultimately failed to reach an agreement to solve GERD crisis.
Egypt and Sudan say they want a legally binding agreement on filling and operating the GERD, while Ethiopia is trying to evade a binding agreement.
Egypt, which relies considerably on freshwater from the Nile, has voiced fears that the GERD would negatively impact the country’s water supply, and has insisted that measures be put in place to protect downstream countries in case of drought during the dam’s filling process.
Ethiopia, on the other hand, has stressed the importance of the project to bolster its economy, where more than half of the population currently lives without access to electricity.
