Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Gibe III Dam
Essential to the development of Ethiopia or an environmental and social disaster in the
making? No conversation about environmental policies in Ethiopia is complete without
talk of the huge new Gibe III dam.
The pet project of the late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, the Gibe III dam is part of a
huge hydroelectric project being constructed on the Omo river. The Gibe dams I and II
have already been completed and eventually five dams will be constructed along the Omo
river. The project has several stated goals. Firstly, only around 2% of rural Ethiopians
have mains electricity and it's hoped that this project will bring much more of the rural
population onto the mains electricity grid. The government also hopes to sell about 50%
of the electricity produced to neighbouring countries (though none of them have actually
signed an agreement with Ethiopia to do so; Kenya has signed a Memorandum of Under-
standing).
It is also hoped that the construction of the Gibe III dam (which when completed will
be the biggest dam in Africa) and its brothers will help reduce instances of drought and
flooding as well as allowing the establishment of large scale sugarcane plantations in the
Lower Omo Valley.
Well this all sounds very worthy; so what's the problem? According to the environ-
mental and social impact assessment commissioned by the Ethiopian government (and re-
leased two years after construction of the dam began) the dam will cause minimal prob-
lems. However, almost every other independent environmental and social body disagrees.
The African Resources Working Group has stated that 'Data collected in virtually all ma-
jor sections of the [government environmental impact] report were clearly selected for the
consistence with predetermined objective of validating the completion of the Gibe III
hydro-dam'.
And how will it all affect people downriver?
This is where things get really heated. In a
BBC interview Meles Zenawi said: 'The over-
all environmental impact of the project is
highly beneficial. It increases the amount of
water in the river system, it completely regu-
lates flooding which was a major problem, it
improves the livelihood of people downstream
because they will have irrigation projects, and it does not in any way negatively affect the
Turkana Lake'. Environmentalists and social-rights bodies say that thousands of people
who live downstream of the Gibe III dam, and are reliant on the annual flooding to fertil-
ise and water their crops, will be adversely affected by its construction.
Want to know more about the Gibe III dam? Check
out the project's official site
www.gibe3.com.et
and
International Rivers Gibe III-related pages at
