Successful management of water must balance development needs and economic considerations
In mid-2013, Ethiopia began construction on the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile just upstream from Sudan and Egypt. In many ways this massive dam is a symbol of the water challenges faced by billions of people around the world, with multiple meanings, interpretations, and implications.
For Ethiopians, it represents their first major attempt to control and use the waters of the Nile for economic development in the form of hydropower generation and perhaps agricultural production. For Egyptians, it represents potential interference with their own water systems and strategies because of the risks that water flows in the Nile—considered their lifeblood—will be reduced or subject to the political control of governments and institutions outside their borders. To some in the water policy community, the dam represents tangible evidence that efforts to develop joint and comprehensive management of the entire Nile River basin have failed. To others, it is a symbol of the 20th-century approach to water management—that is, to build large-scale centralized infrastructure without understanding or addressing true environmental, social, and political costs and without looking at more comprehensive integrated options for economic development. In reality, the project represents, to some degree, all of these things.
See full Article: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2013/09/Gleick.htm
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