GERD: The dream of a nation

GERD: water that becomes energy, development and future

That day is still etched in my memory. I was close to the Lake Tana, where we had built an important hydroelectric power plant for Ethiopia, the Beles multipurpose project, like many others completed over the years. 

By my side was Ethiopia’s then Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, a statesman of great vision with whom we had already imagined, designed, and built many of the nation’s most vital works. Suddenly, he stopped and said to me: “I have a dream for this country: to turn the waters of all its rivers into our oil—an inexhaustible source of clean energy, powerful enough to fuel industries, to bring light to every home, and to give hope to every young generation. For this reason, I want to build something great on the Nile, something unique, something extraordinary. How long would it take you to design it?” 

It was a warm, luminous evening, and in that moment the GERD was born, the dream of an entire nation. Little more than a year later, Meles Zenawi passed away, but another great man, another trusted friend, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, embraced that vision. Defying enormous challenges, he carried it forward, sustaining and delivering the project that today enters history: a dam producing as much energy as three nuclear power plants combined, a priceless legacy for a great nation of nearly 130 million people. 

On that hot day close to the Lake Tana, to even imagine a dam of more than ten million cubic meters of concrete, an artificial lake stretching over 170 kilometers, and a powerhouse capable of doubling the electricity output of an entire state, was a challenge first for the imagination, and only then for engineering. 

But imagination itself is the necessary attitude for those who live by visions and are used to inhabiting the future, even before the present. GERD, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, was born from a vision: that of the government of one of Africa’s most populous countries, which chose to make the best use of its natural resources in order to generate energy and development. And indeed, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is not only the largest dam in Africa, but also the tangible symbol of how ingenuity, courage, and vision can transform the destiny of a country. GERD is energy that flows, it is light that illuminates homes, schools, and factories, it is a driver for the economic and social growth of Ethiopia and of all East Africa. 

For us at Webuild, leading the construction of this project was both a privilege and a responsibility. We operated in a complex context, in one of the most remote regions of the continent, bringing infrastructure, technologies, and expertise where before there were only dirt roads and isolated villages. We built not only dams and power plants, but also schools, hospitals, roads, and connections, an entire ecosystem in support of development. This is why GERD represents what we know how to do best: tackling engineering challenges of global scale, combining technical excellence with organizational capability. 

In the case of the Ethiopian dam, this meant diverting the course of the Blue Nile, placing millions of cubic meters of concrete, installing turbines capable of generating over 5,000 MW of clean energy. 

GERD is in fact a valuable tool for Ethiopia’s energy transition, but also for that of an entire continent. Hydropower is today the world’s leading renewable energy source and has a key role in decarbonization. Thanks to ongoing hydropower projects worldwide, Webuild will help generate 14,000 MW of installed capacity, providing clean and accessible energy to over 23 million people and reducing CO emissions by 2 13 million tons per year. 

In Africa, as elsewhere, access to energy is not just a technological matter, but an essential condition for industrial development, for education, for health, and for human dignity. The water flowing from the Blue Nile, transformed into electricity, thus becomes a bridge to the future, capable of uniting peoples and fueling new opportunities.

GERD is a work that will remain in the history of engineering, but above all in the memory of those who saw it come to life and of those who, thanks to it, will be able to imagine a different tomorrow. For us at Webuild, it is further confirmation that building sustainable infrastructure means building the future.

Pietro Salini
CEO of Webuild