Paper short abstract:

Water-induced conflicts in the Nile basin centers at the crossroad of hydro-hegemony, politicization of aid, peacebuilding in conflict areas generating migrants. The study traces how securitization of water governance intertwines with donor's aid leveraging (U.S. aid to disputed areas).

Paper long abstract:

Water-induced migration generally stems from climate change effects including, water shortage from droughts or changing landscapes that hinder irrigation channels. However, the issue is not necessarily confined to climate-driven causes. Instead, water migration can be securitized; placed in the midst of crossroads that intersect hydro-hegemony, politicization of aid, peacebuilding in conflict areas that stems from struggles over resources generated from water and entailing migrants. Countries around the Nile river basin are facing such challenges for the past decades with the development of the Aswan High Dams in Egypt, Kajbar and Dal Dams in Sudan, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Politics circle around the transboundary water management, and the most recent dispute is among Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan as key stakeholders of GERD. However, withdrawal or restoration of U.S. foreign aid is being used as a tool to pressure Ethiopia for its arbitrary decisions toward Phase 1 filling of the dam (from July 2020), while negotiations with Egypt and Sudan are still ongoing. Using Copenhagen School's securitization theory, the study intends to show how the politicization of aid and water-induced migration can be securitized, and to discern how this reflects into the current Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus emphasized in international development. Implications are expected to be given on how tensions intertwine with donors' signaling aid nationalism, and infiltration of governance disputes over water resources that result in water-induced migration in disputed areas in disputed areas.