Hydro-communication Efforts of Ethiopia for Equitable and Reasonable Utilization of Abbay-Nile River Basin (1902-2023)

Abstract

Abbay-Nile River Basin is a strategic, transformative and shared natural resource that determines sustainable development of Ethiopia. Hence, Ethiopia has battled for a long period of time to defend the river basin as its national natural resource and to ensure its equitable and reasonable utilization. However, there is no organized body of knowledge revealing hydro-communication efforts Ethiopia exerted in doing so and contributing factors behind. Taking constructivism as research perspective, two-level games theory as lens and employing qualitative content analysis technique of secondary data, this paper, therefore, identified the major hydro- communication efforts and instances Ethiopia has exerted in 1902-2023 and the contributing factors behind. It is found out that Ethiopia’s hydro-communication efforts on Abbay-Nile River Basin in 1902-2023 aimed, consecutively, at defending the basin from colonial powers, resisting the formation and continuation of Egypt’s hydro-hegemony, and reacting to multiple wrong moves made by multiple alliances of Egypt to halt Ethiopia’s progress to utilizing the basin. Hydro-communication efforts, facilitated by factors such as consistent position of Ethiopian governments, global developments on international water law and transboundary water resource management, produced knowledge on the basin, geographic power, public funding and availability of instantaneous communication, have collectively brought about remarkable change in the progress of ensuring equitable and reasonable utilization of the basin. Egypt and Ethiopia have exchanged their seats of the pre-2011 in the post-2011 concerning the basin but with unprecedented pressure on and huge responsiveness of Ethiopia to creating level playing field for equitable and reasonable utilization of the basin.

Keywords: strategic, transformative, sustainable development, hydro-hegemony.