Countdown to a Bitter Battle Over the Water of the Nile?

Jul 6, 2020 | Ricard González
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In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, the idea that water would drive the wars of the future took hold among analysts and the media. Three decades later and that grim prospect has, fortunately, not yet materialised, and international cooperation, despite its ups and downs, is the norm in the management of transboundary waters. But the world may never have been as close to a ‘war over water’ as it is now, following the escalation in the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has reached its final stage. The Ethiopian authorities intend to start filling the dam’s reservoir in the coming days, before finalising an agreement with Egypt, which has inflamed tensions.