If you live in a city or suburb, chances are your regional government has tried to get your attention. Did you notice? Many of the issues your regional government is grappling with are actually important to you: the quality of the air you breathe, the quality of public transportation, the availability of green open space, and more.

As important as these issues are, I can almost guarantee that planners from your region have had to work extra hard to convince the press -- not to mention the citizens that live and work there -- to pay attention. The problem is, regional planning is about as exciting to the public as televised bowling and the press don’t seem to find the topic as newsworthy as it should be.

And then there is Paris. In one year, approximately a hundred articles and editorials on Grand Paris, a new regional effort, were printed in the city’s main paper, Le Monde. Grand Paris has also been covered by UK newspapers, such as the Telegraph and The Guardian, and by US newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor. In my interviews with Parisian architects, economists, and sociologists, they tell me that it’s not only the press that is paying attention. Ordinary citizens on the streets and cafes are talking about Grand Paris and Paris as a region.

So what happened?

Turns out, President Sarkozy created a political and media frenzy this past year when he announced his intention to design a new Paris that incorporates the suburbs. Looking at his effort from a socio-economic perspective, Sarkozy should be lauded for his effort to reconnect the isolated suburbs to the economic heart of Paris. The 2005 riots by African immigrants in some of these suburbs gave the world a real peek into some of the inequities found here.

His push has been to look past local political boundaries and acknowledge the new Paris that is emerging -- one that is both larger in geography and socio-economically more diverse. In 2007, the metropolitan area produced more than a quarter of France’s GDP, with a Gross Metropolitan Product of $731.3 billion.

Yet, his national government cites that Paris is underdeveloped in important sectors, and that the region’s economic growth has been slowing over the past two decades. Sarkozy also saw this as an opportunity to redefine the region in a post-Kyoto era, where sustainable development is no longer an afterthought.

Sarkozy retained 10 architectural teams with heavy hitters, such as Richard Rodgers, and asked them to “think big” on how to physically redefine the Paris region. In response, they offered lofty ideas for new economic centers, new high density housing hubs, and even a Paris covered with green roofs. For a moment, one could even argue that these teams breathed a new life of possibility for Paris. 

But politics is local—even when the French President is involved. 

As it turns out, Paris already has a plan for their region; one that was formally approved by the local jurisdictions and leaders and is now simply waiting for sign off by Sarkozy’s government. This plan addresses many of the issues Sarkozy argues that the region lacks, such as the need to address the 20 years of underinvestment in public infrastructure.

It also turns out that Grand Paris flies directly in the face of the regional coalition building effort under way. An important number of leaders that comprise the region’s 1,231 jurisdictions are already forging a common agenda on cross cutting issues such as transportation and economic development. These are just two of the several missteps that have made the idea turn sour.

So what seems to have started as a visionary act to physically remake the region has turned into a story on jurisdictional entanglements and hurt egos -- and the press ate it up. Interestingly, this controversy and all the press it generated has actually been an important win for regionalism in the end.

For years, corporate campuses like Silicon Valley were known for innovation. Located in suburban corridors that were only accessible by car, these places put little emphasis on creating communities where people work, live and go out.

But now, as the economy emerges from the recession, a shift is occurring where innovation is taking place. Districts of innovation can be found in urban centres as disparate as Montreal, Seoul, Singapore, Medellin, Barcelona, and London. They are popping up in the downtowns and midtowns of cities like Atlanta, Cambridge, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

These are places where advanced research universities, medical complexes, and clusters of tech and creative firms are attracting businesses and residents.

Other innovation districts can be found in Boston, Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Seattle, where older industrial areas are being re-imagined and remade, leveraging their enviable location near waterfronts and city centres and along transit lines. Innovative companies and talented workers are flocking to these areas in abundance.

Even traditional science parks like Research Triangle Park in Raleigh-Durham are scrambling to urbanise to keep pace with their workers' preference for walkable communities and their companies' desire to be near other firms.

In these districts, leading anchor institutions and start-ups are clustering and connecting with one another. They are coming together with spin-off companies, incubators, and accelerators in the relentless pursuit of new discoveries for the market.

These areas are small and accessible, growing talent, fostering open collaboration, and offering housing and office space as well as modern urban amenities. They are both competitive places and "cool" spaces.

The growth of innovation districts is being driven by private and civic actors like universities, philanthropies, business associations and business improvement districts. Yet local governments play an important role in accelerating the growth of districts and maximising their potential . Three roles stand out:

1) Mayors are leading efforts to designate districts

Barcelona's former mayor Joan Clos set his eyes on transforming his city into a "city of knowledge". Through extensive, focused public planning and investment, Clos designed an innovation district from the debris of a 494-acre industrial area, which was scarred and separated from the rest of the city by railroad tracks. His vision included burying these tracks, increasing access via a new public tram, designing walkable streets, and creating new public spaces and housing.

Today, the area is a 21st-century urban community with 4,500 firms, thousands of new housing units, and clusters of universities, technology centres, and incubators.

Across the Atlantic in Boston, former mayor Tom Menino declared the South Boston waterfront an innovation district in 2010. Menino persuaded innovators like MassChallenge to move to the district and exacted important concessions from developers (including land for innovation-oriented retail, shared labs and other spaces, and micro-housing) to help realise the district's vision.

2) Changing land-use laws to build spaces with a mix of facilities

Barcelona and Research Triangle Park, for example, developed bold master plans encouraging the "mixing" of large and small firms, research facilities, housing, restaurants, and retail and outlining where to create open spaces for networking. Cambridge, Massachusetts, by contrast, has allowed incremental moves from rigid, antiquated rules to encourage similar outcomes in Kendall Square .

3) Supporting scarce public resources with large private and civic investments

In New York , former mayor Michael Bloomberg deployed $100m in municipal capital to prepare the infrastructure necessary to lure Cornell and Technion universities to Roosevelt Island. In other cities, including St Louis and Seattle, local resources are financing infrastructure improvements to buttress and accelerate private growth.

Given that many innovation districts are adjacent to low-income neighbourhoods, cities like Philadelphia are considering smart use of school investments to prepare disadvantaged youth for good jobs in the Stem (science, technology, engineering, and math) economy.

As this decade unfolds, we should expect more cities to use their powers in the service of this new model of innovative, inclusive, and resilient growth.

This opinion originally appeared in The Guardian

In August, the White House announced the cancellation of the Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, while still saying that U.S. relations with Russia remain a priority. By all accounts, the Snowden case appears to have further complicated already strained U.S.-Russia relations. With President Obama headed to St. Petersburg, Russia for the G20 summit on September 6 and 7, the likelihood of an Obama-Putin bilateral meeting remains unanswered and unlikely.

With an eye toward a possible bilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, Brookings experts Steven Pifer, Clifford Gaddy and Angela Stent address these developments and future prospects for the U.S.-Russia cooperation on issues like Syria and arms control.

Steven Pifer:

“I think people now see the reset as a failure. I actually think the reset succeeded, because the goal was not to get us to Nirvana with Russia, but to lift us out of the hole that we found ourselves in in 2008.”

Clifford Gaddy:

“Steve has said that the relations are not as bad, are at their worst since, you know, the fall of communism. I would probably say they probably are as bad.”

Angela Stent:

“It's not clear what the U.S.-Russian agenda is going forward. The things we would like to accomplish — more arms control, an agreement on missile defense, even, you know, more U.S. investment in Russia — the Russians don't seem to be interesting in responding. We do need to work together — and we will, still, on post-2014 Afghanistan, on Iran — but it's really unclear what an agenda would be going forward.”

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A key objective of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is to assist its member countries in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). UNDP pursues this objective in various ways, including through analysis and advice to governments on the progress towards the MDGs (such as support for the preparation and monitoring Poverty Reduction Strategies, or PRSs, in poor countries), assistance for capacity building, and financial and technical support for the preparation and implementation of development programs.

The challenge of achieving the MDGs remains daunting in many countries, including Tajikistan. To do so will require that all development partners, i.e., the government, civil society, private business and donors, make every effort to scale up successful development interventions. Scaling up refers to “expanding, adapting and sustaining successful policies, programs and projects on different places and over time to reach a greater number of people.” Interventions that are successful as pilots but are not scaled up will create localized benefits for a small number of beneficiaries, but they will fail to contribute significantly to close the MDG gap.

This paper aims to assess whether and how well UNDP is supporting scaling up in its development programs in Tajikistan. While the principal purpose of this assessment was to assist the UNDP country program director and his team in Tajikistan in their scaling up efforts, it also contributes to the overall growing body of evidence on the scaling up of development interventions worldwide.

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Editor’s Note: The following piece is a chapter from the 2012 edition of Eurasian Development Bank’s Eurasian Integration Yearbook.

INTRODUCTION

For centuries Central Asia was in the backwater of global political and economic attention, tales of “Great Games” and “Silk Roads” notwithstanding. However, interest in Central Asia from outside the region has been on the rise in recent years: Central Asia’s energy resources are of great importance to its neighbours in Europe and Asia. In addition, China wants a peaceful backyard, while Russia considers Central Asia part of its historical economic and regional interests and draws heavily on Central Asia migrants. Turkey is attracted by the common Turkic heritage of the region. Iran shares language and cultural ties with the Tajik people. The Central Asia’s Islamic tradition connects it with the Middle East and other Islamic countries. And now NATO countries rely on Central Asia for transit of their nonlethal military supplies in their engagement in Afghanistan.

There is wide agreement that economic prosperity and political stability in Central Asia is critical not only for the 60-plus million inhabitants of the region, but also for Central Asia’s neighbours, since Central Asia serves as a strategically important land bridge between Europe and Asia. Since the five Central Asian countries are landlocked small economies, a critical prerequisite for long-term economic growth and political stability is successful economic integration underpinned by effective regional cooperation.

This paper therefore addresses the central question of what are the prospects for regional economic integration and regional cooperation in Central Asia. It starts by briefly reviewing the role of Central Asia in the context of the overall process of Eurasian continental economic integration. It then considers what are the benefits and obstacles of regional integration and cooperation in Central Asia against the backdrop of lessons of international experience with regional integration and cooperation, and looks at four of the most important recent regional cooperation initiatives. In closing, the paper provides an answer to the question whether regional integration and cooperation in Central Asia are for real or only a mirage.

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Visiting Astana, the modernistic capital of Kazakhstan, last week, I couldn't help feeling that I was at, or at least close to, the center of the universe. 

Consider this:  On September 7, the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, having just returned from attending the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg at the invitation of President Putin of Russia, welcomed President Xi Jinping of China for an official visit in Astana. President Xi gave a speech that day at Nazarbayev University, in which he unabashedly borrowed a turn of phrase from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  by proposing a “New Silk Road” to serve as an “economic belt” of Eurasia, connecting “3 million people from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea” with Kazakhstan as a key partner along the way. 

On September 10, President Nazarbayev opened the Eurasian Emerging Markets Forum in Astana, at which he addressed some 800 participants, including high-level dignitaries and representatives from 87 countries.  In his keynote speech, he laid out his plans to catapult Kazakhstan into the ranks of the top 30 developed countries in the world by 2050.  The rest of the forum was devoted to exploring the ways in which this ambitious vision could be achieved and how economic integration of the Eurasian supercontinent—i.e., Europe plus Asia, with Kazakhstan at its center—would be a driver of regional and global prosperity. 

Finally, on September 13, President Nazarbayev joined the leaders of China, Russia and the five Central Asian republics in Bishkek for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was also attended by a number of other regional leaders with observer status, including from Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan.  Besides the usual pledges of good neighborly relations within the group, the leaders weighed in with a chorus of statements about current geopolitical trouble spots, including Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, many of them directed critically at the United States.

While the president and people of Kazakhstan might have felt at the center of global action this week, there is little doubt that China and Russia are the key external actors on the Central Asian stage.  Europe and the United States are far away and hardly visible, and everybody expects that, with the imminent end of NATO’s engagement in Afghanistan, their attention to Central Asia will slip even further.  In contrast, the leaders of China and Russia are clearly focused on this region.  

Central Asian leaders, while perhaps privately worried about the long-term consequences of too tight an embrace by China, welcome the low-key approach of their big neighbor...

If there had been any doubt, President Xi’s speech in Astana showed that China is now concerned with Central Asia at the highest level.  While China faces its neighbors in the Pacific region in an assertive pose designed to counter what it sees as encirclement by unfriendly countries led by the U.S., it evidently feels no threat in Central Asia and projects an image of itself as benevolent and modest senior partner.  No doubt sensing opportunities to create a stable backyard, to secure access to energy resources and to build a land bridge to European and Middle Eastern markets while also gently wresting influence away from Russia, China has a strong incentive to push westward.  The substantial energy supply deals  that President Xi signed in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan this past week and the stress Xi placed in his Astana speech on measures to open up transport links throughout Eurasia reflect China’s growing engagement in this region.  Central Asian leaders, while perhaps privately worried about the long-term consequences of too tight an embrace by China, welcome the low-key approach of their big neighbor, which promises to strengthen their own hand economically and politically at least in the short term.

At the same time, there is also a new dynamic between Central Asia and Russia.  Since Mr. Putin resumed the Russian presidency in 2012, Russia has breathed new life into a long-dormant regional grouping, the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), by pushing hard to create a customs union  (and eventually an economic union) that, in Russia’s view, would encompass most of the republics of the former Soviet Union. Although only a fraction of the geographic space of continental Eurasia (Europe + Asia), the reference to “Eurasia” harks back to a long-standing Russian ideological vision.  Under this vision, Russia and its former Soviet neighbors are endowed with a unique combination of European and Asian values and, led by Russia, with a mission to dominate the land bridge between Europe and Asia. 

In the pursuit of establishing a unified economic “Eurasian” space, Russia has not only successfully pushed for the full implementation of the current customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belorussia, but is also vigorously pursuing the expansion of the union in Ukraine, Central Asia (specifically targeting the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan) and Armenia in the South Caucasus.  In the case of Armenia and Ukraine, this pursuit has taken on a decidedly anti-European Union tone, as Russia seems to spare no effort to ensure that these countries will join its own economic orbit, rather than associating with the EU.  In Central Asia, the Russian campaign of expanding the customs union has been more low key, but nonetheless persistent with the quiet support of Kazakhstan.  Interestingly, this effort to create a unified economic space has not been cast by Russia as a move to counteract the growing influence of China in Central Asia, even though it is undoubtedly one of the underlying long-term motives for Russian diplomacy in the region.  

Much more important for China will be whether the “Eurasian” economic union can create safe, low-cost and high-speed transit routes to China’s key trading partners in Europe, South Asia and the Middle East.

Indeed, for Central Asia in general and for Kazakhstan in particular, the important questions for the future will be how China and Russia shape their mutual relations overall and how they will seek to accommodate their overlapping interests in the region.  For the moment, a common geopolitical front vis-à-vis the U.S., evident in their joint positions at the U.N. Security Council and at the SCO summit last week, is an overarching priority for China and Russia.  Moreover, they share the common interest of establishing a stable and prosperous political and economic sphere in Central Asia.  For now and the foreseeable future, China’s thirst for energy is large enough to allow both Russia and Central Asian countries to pursue opportunities for major oil and gas supply deals with China without undue competition. Finally, whatever protectionist effects an expansion of the Russian-led customs union may have in limiting trade between China and Central Asia will likely be temporary and will hardly be noticed in China’s huge overall trade account.  Much more important for China will be whether the “Eurasian” economic union can create safe, low-cost and high-speed transit routes to China’s key trading partners in Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. This priority strongly resonated in President Xi’s speech, in which he not only staked out an interest in Eurasian economic integration, but also promised greater cooperation between the SCO and EurAsEC.

What does all of this mean in practical terms for Central Asia and for Kazakhstan?  As President Nazarbayev indicated in his speech at the Eurasian Emerging Markets Forum, he sees Kazakhstan as playing a key role in supporting the economic integration of larger Eurasia.  This presumably should mean: investing in regional infrastructure, such as the major East-West Highway through Kazakhstan as a link from China to Europe; assuring that the customs union pursues open, rather than protectionist, policies; and convincing the other Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, to participate in an effort to increase the region’s connectivity both internally and with the rest of the world. 

In addition, there are a number of institutional options for promoting these goals and for turning China’s and Russia’s engagement in Central Asia into a pragmatic partnership.  One option would be to have China join the Eurasian Development Bank (EADB), the financial arm of EurAsEC.  Another would be for Russia to join the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC), in which China has teamed up with Central Asian countries (now also including Afghanistan, Mongolia and Pakistan) and with six international financial organizations (including the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank) with the goal of improving regional cooperation and investment in trade, transport and energy.  Either or both of these two options could then offer SCO a financial and technical institutional platform to pursue economic integration between China, Russia and Central Asia (and, ultimately, even South Asia), a goal that has eluded SCO up until now. 

Kazakhstan is a member of EurAsEc, EADB, CAREC and SCO, and is therefore in a unique position to promote institutional changes along some or all of these lines.  One place to start would be the next ministerial conference of CAREC, to be held in Astana on October 24-25.  Of course, it is by no means clear that China and Russia will see it in their interest to dilute their lead roles in EADB and CAREC, the regional organizations that they now respectively dominate.  However, establishing a strong and meaningful institutional capacity that would support the economic integration process in Central Asia and in the larger Eurasia would be of great benefit for Kazakhstan, since it would help turn the country from being “land-locked” to being “land-linked” with the world’s largest and most dynamic economies.

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A conversation with Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Bohuslav Sobotka

Today, the European Union faces critical risks to its stability. The possibility of a Brexit. The ongoing Ukraine/Russia conflict. The strain of mass migration. ISIL and other terrorism threats. The lingering financial crisis in Greece and beyond. These issues pose distinct challenges for the EU, its 28 member countries, and their 500 million citizens. How will these developing problems affect Europe?          

On March 31, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka to discuss the current status of the EU as seen through the lens of a Central European nation, close U.S. NATO ally and current Chair of the Visegrad Group. Prime Minister Sobotka offered insight into how the EU will address these issues, and where its future lies.

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On April 2, 2011, Ethiopia embarked upon the construction of what is expected to be the biggest hydroelectric power plant in Africa.  Called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), it will be located on the Blue Nile, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border with the Republic of Sudan and will have the capacity to produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity.  The GERD, once completed and made operational, is expected to ameliorate chronic domestic energy shortages, help the country’s households (especially those located in the rural areas) switch to cleaner forms of energy and allow the government to earn foreign exchange through the exportation of electricity to other countries in the region.  Although authorities in Addis Ababa believe that the dam will contribute  significantly to economic growth and development—not just in Ethiopia, but also in neighboring countries, such as Sudan—its construction has been very controversial.  The major controversies revolve around Ethiopia’s decision to fund the building of the dam from its own sources and the potential impacts of the dam on downstream countries, especially Egypt.  

Ethiopia opted to source funds for the construction of the GERD through selling bonds to citizens at home and abroad.  Government employees have been encouraged to devote as much as one or two months of their salaries to the purchasing of the GERD bonds.  Most public workers in Ethiopia earn relatively low wages and face a significantly high cost of living.  Hence, they are not likely to be able to sacrifice that much of their salaries to invest in this national project.  Nevertheless, many of them have been observed purchasing the GERD bonds, primarily because of pressure from the government and the belief that participation in this national project is a show of one’s patriotism.

The government of Ethiopia has also encouraged the private sector to invest in the GERD project.  Specifically, private domestic banks and other business enterprises are expected to purchase millions of Birr worth of these bonds.  The government also hopes that Ethiopians in the diaspora will contribute significantly to this massive effort to develop the country’s hydroelectric power resources.  However, many Ethiopians in the diaspora have not been willing to invest in the GERD project, citing pervasive corruption in the public sector and dictatorial government policies as reasons why they would not commit the resources necessary to move the project forward.  Additionally, Ethiopians living outside the country have argued that the present government in Addis Ababa continues to impede the country’s transition to democracy by making it virtually impossible for opposition parties to operate, using draconian laws (e.g., anti-terrorism laws) to silence legitimate protests and generally denying citizens the right to express themselves.  For these reasons, many of them have refused to invest in the GERD project.  Finally, Ethiopia’s traditional development partners, including such international organizations as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, appear to be unwilling to lend the country the necessary funds for the construction of the dam given the controversies surrounding the dam and their policies on the building of megadams.

Egypt has registered its opposition to the construction of the GERD.  In fact, before he was ousted, former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi made it known to authorities in Addis Ababa that Egypt would not support the project.  The Egyptians, as they have done before, have invoked the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1929, which granted Egypt veto power over all construction projects on the Nile River and its tributaries.  According to Cairo, then, Ethiopia was supposed to obtain permission from Egypt before embarking on the GERD project.

In May 2010, five upstream riparian states (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania) signed the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which, they argue, would provide the mechanism for the equitable and fair use of Nile River waters.  On June 13, 2013, the Ethiopian Parliament ratified the CFA and incorporated it into domestic law.  The other four signatories have not yet ratified the treaty but plan to do so eventually.  Egypt and Sudan, however, have refused to sign the CFA and continue to argue that the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, as well as the 1959 bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan, represent the only legal mechanisms for Nile River governance.  Recently, however, the government of Sudan has indicated its support for the GERD, and South Sudan, which gained its independence from Khartoum on July 9, 2011, does not oppose the project either.

Significant increases in population in Egypt, the need for the country to expand its irrigated agricultural base, as well as other industrial needs have significantly increased the country’s demand for water.  Unfortunately for Egyptians, the only viable source of water in the country is the Nile River.  Thus, Egyptians, as made clear by their leaders, are not willing to relinquish even one drop of water.  The country’s bitter opposition to the GERD stems from the fact that it will reduce the flow of water into the Nile River and force Egyptians to live with less water than now.  Egyptian leaders are not willing to accept the assertion made by the Ethiopian government that the construction of the dam will not significantly reduce the flow of water from the Blue Nile into Egypt.  Thus, Cairo has hinted that it would employ all means available to stop the construction of the GERD.

The site of the GERD was identified during geological surveys conducted between 1956 and 1964 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation.  Although studies determining the feasibility of a dam on the Blue Nile were completed almost half a century ago, previous Ethiopian governments did not make any attempt to build such a structure on the Blue Nile.  This inaction may have been due to Egypt’s ability to lobby the international donor community and prevent it from providing Addis Ababa with the necessary financial resources to complete the project, Ethiopia’s chronic internal political instability, or Egypt’s military strength and its strong ties with neighboring Sudan (the latter shares the same interests as Egypt regarding the waters of the Nile River).  In fact, the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and the 1959 bilateral agreement between Sudan and Egypt granted both countries complete control of all the waters of the Nile River.

Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has been weakened significantly, politically, economically and militarily.  The struggle between the military and civil society for control of the government has been a major distraction to the Egyptian military, and it is unlikely that it can effectively face a relatively strong and more assertive Ethiopian military.  Hence, it appears that this might be the most opportune time for Ethiopia to initiate such a construction project.  Perhaps more important is the fact that virtually all of the upstream riparian states are no longer willing to allow both Egypt and Sudan to continue to monopolize the waters of the Nile River.  In addition, Ethiopia is relatively at peace and maintains good relations with its neighbors, particularly the Republic of Sudan, which would be critical in any successful attack on Ethiopia by Egypt.  Of course, Addis Ababa has also invoked and relied on the Cooperative Framework Agreement which, besides Ethiopia, has been signed by four other upstream riparian States—the CFA favors the equitable and fair use of the waters of the Nile River.  Authorities in Addis Ababa believe that the GERD will contribute to such fair and equitable use; after all, the Blue Nile (which is located in Ethiopia) provides 86 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River.  Up to this point, Ethiopia has made virtually no use of that water, allowing Egypt and Sudan alone to dictate its usage.

Critics of the GERD, including some Ethiopians within and outside the country, argue that Addis Ababa initiated the building of the dam just to divert public attention away from internal political tensions associated with lack of religious freedom, human rights violations, suppression of the press, and the economic and political polarization that has become pervasive throughout the country during the last several decades. 

Given the economic significance of the Blue Nile for the source country (Ethiopia) and downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan), it is critical that these countries engage in constructive dialogue to find a mutually beneficial solution for the project.  Such negotiations should take into consideration the fact that the status quo, characterized by Egyptian monopolization of the waters of the Nile River and the exclusion of Ethiopia from exploiting its own water resources for its development, cannot be maintained.  Thus, the construction of the GERD should be taken as a given and the three countries—Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia—should find ways to maximize the benefits of the dam and minimize its negative impacts on the downstream countries.  As part of that negotiation, both Egypt and Sudan should abandon their opposition to the CFA, sign it and encourage their legislatures to ratify it.  The Nile River and its tributaries should be considered common property belonging to all Nile River Basin communities and should be managed from that perspective.