Social Innovation and Industry: Analysis of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project and Its Complexity

Running head: SOCIAL INNOVATION AND INDUSTRY
Complex Project Management
(The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam)
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Author Note

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Executive Summary
One of the most important construction project, the designing of the “Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam” has been developed on the water of the River Nile at Ethiopia. Further,
the project is been owned by “Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation”. This particular report
demonstrates that the background of the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” project while
evaluating the overall causes. Furthermore, this project identified the various techniques and
tools utilised for the development of the dam. Various journals and literatures have been
reviewed for identifying the literature and professional significance of the project. In addition
to that the project also identifies the intellectual performances and logics that are used for
determining the complexity of the tasks related to project.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and complexity in its project..................................3
3. Evaluating properties, environments, causes of the projects.................................................5
4. Discussion on techniques and tools used in the project.........................................................8
5. Complexity analysis...............................................................................................................9
5.1. Qualitative analysis.............................................................................................9
5.2. Quantitative analysis.........................................................................................11
6. The incorporation project cases and arguments and complexities6.1. Understanding
complexity level.......................................................................................................................12
6.2. Type of complexity...........................................................................................13
6.3. 5 factors of complexity......................................................................................15
7. Critical review and inclusion of professional and academic literature and application to The
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam..........................................................................................16
8. Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................19
9. References............................................................................................................................21

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1. Introduction
The Millennium Dam, one of the most popular dam, is most popularly known as
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam or GERD (Mondal et al. 2017). The GERD is situated
over the River Nile located in the Benishangul-Gumuz, Ethiopia. The project is being
developed currently under the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO).
The reservoir and dam of the GERD has been proven beneficial to various nations
including Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. From the ages, it has been identified that the water
from the River Niles holds a significant importance to Egypt (Kebede 2015). This has long
prevented the development of the dam over the river. In addition to that, the nation is
dependent on the river for their water requirements for ages. In 2012, Tripartite Committee
was formed in order to promote the awareness and advantages of the ongoing GERD project
over Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan (Demissie and Solomon 2016).
This particular reports aims at devaluating the characteristics, environmental impacts,
background of the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam”. In addition to that the reports also
highlights the various complications identified during the construction and various tools and
techniques used for the GERD project.
2. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and explanation of the
complexity in its project
In 2011, the entire construction of the GERD was initiated at Ethiopia. GERD project,
known as one of the most controversial project was initiated in the place called Guba located
in Africa (Carr 2017). Apart from the time duration, design and scope of the project, the
financial factor has become a significant concern related to the GERD project development.
Furthermore, during the time of filling the reservoir of the GERD project, there has been

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significant concern regarding the non-technical, stakeholder and political issues due to the
decreased water share available from the river to the concern nations. This increased the
issues regarding water securities at Egypt and Sudan.
The various water disputes associated with the GERD project has complicated the
project development to significant level. The disputes identified during the project has
complicated the project and increased the complexity of the system along with the
stakeholders associated with the project (Tesfaye, Wolanios, and Brouwer 2016). The
uncertainty of the project was identified as one of the major complexity impacting the
project. The complexity increased based on how the network and system been responding to
the stress around the entire GERD project (Zhang et al. 2015). This resulted in the seldom
changes in the needs, flow, new development priorities and the increased number of
population. The construction of the GERD project over the River Niles has resulted din the
increased complexity of the managing and various resources associated with the project. This
complexity has been identified mostly among the competing stakeholders and the riparian
states. In addition to that, various uncertainties increased due to the unpredictable impact and
feedback obtained from various processes, institutions and actors (Anwar, D., 2017).
This has allowed in diagnosing the nature and source of complications taking place in
various locations over the River Nile. Various contingent element and contextual factors have
been playing its roles on GERD project. The detailed analysis has been able to identify the
various interventions points that helps in resolving the conflicts associated with the GERD
project. Therefore, in the GERD project, the non-technical elements, legislations politics,
scope, cost, stakeholders, future risks, policies and design has contributed towards the
increased complexity of the GERD project that aligned with the various context related to
PPMP20014.

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3. Analysis of the properties, different environments, causes behind the
projects:
The ongoing GERD project identified as one of the biggest hydroelectric power plant,
has been planned to complete in the near future. The GERD reservoir has taken its place
among the various biggest reservoirs current located in Africa. The GERD project aim is
improving the management of water that has been conventionally done for developing the
infrastructure, cultural, social and political complexities (Tuka, Leidhold and Mamo 2017). In
addition to that, the reservoir constructed for the GERD project is proposed to store
approximately 70 billion cubic meter water (Kelebe and Olorunnisola 2016). The
approximate water storage has been estimated to correspond according to the outflow of the
river for throughout the year as taken from the Aswan high dam. Therefore the energy to be
produced from the GERD project is significant and expected to be an important factor for
reducing poverty, and increasing the food and economy along the Ethiopia and Nile Basin.
However, the GERD project has been considered as one of the important political
statement. The proposal for the GERD dam has re-written the hydropolitical map in one
stroke located over the Nile River (Reis et al. 2016). The GERD project is often considered in
one word as the Renaissance of the Ethiopian nationalism. Various researchers have stated
the GERD project as the hydro solidarity while contrasting the nationalism ideas. This
contrasting ideas has been used for enabling the fair utilisation of the issues related to the
global management of water. Various researchers have claimed that this has allowed the
upliftment of the socioeconomic and sustainable environment. In this report, the detailed
occurrence of the various risks and uncertainties associated with the GERD project has been
identified and evaluated (Abebe 2018). Furthermore, the report tends to deals with the
interconnection between the various uncertainties in the Nile basin and evaluated.
Identification of the most effective and probable results from the uncertainties have been