Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: From Nothing to a Whole City in Ethiopia

There is a corner of Africa that is difficult to find even on maps. It is called Benishangul-Gumuz, a remote western Ethiopia region, more than 700 kilometers from Addis Ababa. Getting there means undertaking a journey lasting days, along dirt roads that vanish during the rainy season and through isolated villages surrounded by forests, savannah, and deep gorges.

Today, to reach the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, one flies from Addis Ababa to an airstrip built by Webuild, a landing strip just over a kilometer long. Once there, the light transport plane drops passengers in a place that seems suspended between past and future, where time still follows the rhythm of the seasons and of the Blue Nile flowing nearby.

But the eye is immediately drawn to the great modern infrastructures, the construction sites, and the residential camps that have transformed the face of the region.

When the first engineers and workers arrived in 2011, there was nothing in this vast Ethiopian region: no paved roads, no infrastructure, only harsh and untouched land. Today, around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project, a true city has grown.

To build the the project, it was first necessary to create facilities capable of housing up to 10,000 people at the same time: three residential camps, canteens serving thousands of meals a day, schools for workers’ children, clinics, a hospital, and recreational spaces.

The construction site thus turned into a microcosm: inside it there was also a club, a swimming pool, soccer and tennis courts. A network of roads now connects every corner of the site, which has become a real city where, despite work shifts covering 24 hours a day, daily life spaces were guaranteed—indispensable to sustain a collective effort that lasted more than a decade.

The most important resource in such a territory was water. That is why one of the first interventions was the construction of a Nile River water management and treatment system. Two large collection basins and a water treatment plant were built in the site, capable of supplying water both to the construction facilities and to workers’ homes.

While the waters of the Blue Nile were thus filtered and treated, special attention was also given to other essential services such as education. At the heart of the camp, a school with dedicated teachers was established so that the children of the families present could continue studying even while living in such an isolated place. In this way, the site became not only a workplace but also a family living space.

Likewise, maximum attention was given to people’s health. In such a remote and wild area, with no nearby hospitals or clinics, ensuring the health of thousands of people was a top priority. These services were also intended to be made available to the local communities. For this reason, Webuild built a central hospital with 20 beds, two satellite clinics, a staff of 71 people, and a health network active 24 hours a day. These facilities were not reserved exclusively for workers but were also open to local Ethiopian population, that here received free care, prevention, and medical assistance.

Activities were not limited to emergencies: the centers carried out vaccination campaigns, HIV and tuberculosis screenings, preventive medicine, and health education. Thousands of consultations and services were provided over the years, and at the end of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project, all medical facilities were handed over to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, becoming a permanent and valuable legacy for the region.

There is a smell that accompanies every day at GERD: that of injera, the Ethiopian national dish, resembling a large light-gray crepe made from teff flour, an ancient Ethiopia grain that grows in the country’s highlands.

The difficulty of finding enough good-quality injera led Webuild to build an actual factory, operational since 2021. Each day, 84 Ethiopian workers produce an average of 6,500 injera, reaching 3 million per year. An industrial production but faithful to tradition, led by a head cook guardian of the original recipe, supervised to ensure quality.

In a place where everything had to be built from scratch, even food became part of the social project: preserving the customs and flavors of daily life.

Driving through GERD’s roads in a pickup, one passes markets, schools, dormitories, and offices. Then the view rises, and the main dam appears: a wall of concrete dominating the valley, like a spaceship landed in the middle of nature. Behind it, the artificial reservoir stretches 172 kilometers, an inland sea where once there were only hills and savannah.

Beyond the dam, the high-voltage pylons rise like towers and disappear eastward, carrying energy to Addis Ababa and beyond national borders. On the edge of the site, two bridges built to connect the riverbanks allow vehicles to move across.

The impression is of being at the frontier of the world, where wild nature meets the most advanced human engineering. This is not just a massive infrastructure but a city with its life, services, and stories. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project has changed Ethiopia’s energy present and, at the same time, the lives of the Ethiopian people living along the banks of the Blue Nile, demonstrating that infrastructural development can also be a social laboratory capable of shaping a collective future.