Introduction

In March, Mongolia was welcomed into the international space community by successfully sending two nanosatellites, Ondosat-Owl-1 and Ondosat-Owl-2, into space. While this was a significant feat for the developing nation, Mongolia hopes to leverage that momentum into a whole new frontier of space activity: a simulation site of Mars.

In 2019, the Mongolian Aerospace Research and Science Association (MARSA) launched the Mars V Project, an initiative to establish this simulation site in the Gobi Desert. Under the leadership of S. Erdenebold, the Mars V Project has presented this idea to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos. Furthermore, the Mars V Project has begun collaborations with 2 groups under NASA and hopes to work with private companies going forward. After completing a deal that allowed Mongolia to use Starlink, the Project has begun discussing Mars V collaboration with SpaceX magnate Elon Musk. Currently, the Project is being advised by former Mongolian cosmonaut Jügderdemidiin Gurragchaa.

Evidently, Mongolia is planning toward a future of scientific innovation and international collaboration. But does it have the standing and resources to implement them? This short piece hopes to address two questions: 1) what makes Mongolia’s space policy attractive to other space organizations, and 2) what is Mongolia’s vision for its future role in the international space industry?

Jumping on a Trend

Mongolia isn’t the first ‘geopolitical minnow’ to enter the international space race. Island nations such as New Zealand have leased lands at below-market rates and reduced corporate taxes for the construction of launching sites, Lithuania’s Aerospace Science Technology and Innovation Development Program has worked to bolster both research and economic incentives for space tech companies, and Luxembourg has allocated $110 million in funding to space mining startups. In addition, the UAE has invested in its own space policy program, financing Japanese-built hardware for both the Emirates Mars Mission, which sent the Hope Probe to Mars in 2021, and the Emirates Lunar Mission in 2023, which unsuccessfully saw the Rashid Rover crash into the moon.

Yet it is unusual for Mongolia to enter the space race for a few reasons. First, Mongolia has a per capita GDP of roughly $6,000 (IMF) – a significantly smaller fraction than other nations’. Second, Mongolia doesn’t have the talent pool to run the Mars V facilities and projects; most Mongolians graduating from universities earn degrees in business management and law, not subjects such as physics or engineering. Third, with concerns about national debt and a 2% GDP budget deficit, Mongolia doesn’t have the financial resources to launch the project at full scale. Fourth, Mongolia’s geographic location may leave it vulnerable to Chinese and Russian leverage.

So, why would major space organizations wish to endorse Mongolia?

Mongolia’s Marketability

There are five components that make Mongolia marketable as a partner in Mars exploration: 1) the Gobi’s unique environment and climate, 2) its geopolitical neutrality, 3) a clear focus on enhancing foreign investment, 4) a commitment to renewable energy, and 5) a nomadic culture.

Being one of the largest, coldest deserts, unused and untouched, the Mongolian Gobi would theoretically have both the environmental conditions and available space to construct a major project for simulating life on Mars. Its temperature conditions – a night-day temperature range of -42 ℃ to 45 ℃ — are similar to the 130-degree variation on Mars. Similarly, rather low precipitation, high wind speeds, and significant Ferum O₂ content in its soil also make the Gobi akin to Mars in  similar climate and soil composition. Although other deserts, such as Chile’s Atacama, have comparable conditions, the Gobi’s vast and uninhabited nature makes it a highly suitable space for both Mars research and the development of scientific facilities in the region.

Beyond having suitable physical landscapes, Mongolia also has a stable geopolitical landscape, making it a suitable partner for collaborative international projects. Mongolia’s policy of absolute neutrality has delivered a strong foundation for successful international collaboration — hosting international dialogues and conferences, entering and creating various multilateral organizations, hosting both South and North Korean embassies, and engaging in joint military training exercises with countries across the geopolitical gambit like China, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and the US. Moreover, Mongolia’s nuclear-weapon-free status and peacekeeping missions have earned it the goodwill of other nations and created a trust to collaborate in joint projects. Its policy of non-aggression also means that Mongolia has no hot adversary, ensuring that it could de-escalate tension between collaborating nations and prevent any from being barred or left behind. In short, Mongolia’s reputation as a successful center for multilateral cooperation would make an international Mars project in the Gobi attractive to participating nations.

Mongolia’s general openness to foreign investment and plans to create an economic free zone in the Gobi Region could also attract space agencies to invest in the project. Mongolia’s current Constitution and Foreign Investment Law ensure that its government “imposes no statutory or regulatory limits on foreign ownership and control of investments,” guaranteeing that a foreign investor has the same rights as a Mongolian investor. As regulated by the WTO, Mongolia’s Free Zone Law would allow agencies and tech startups to operate tax-free, including sales tax and real estate tax, duties, and VAT. Furthermore, land lease terms (formerly limited to five years with a one-year extension) would not apply in the Free Zone. In May of 2024, Mongolia revised the Law on Science and Technology to promote the development of science programs and research, and the Mars V Project has been officially included in Mongolia’s Vision 2050. The Mongolian government thus seems unanimously invested in creating legislation that encourages space agencies to participate.

Additionally, the country’s investment in improving renewable energy availability in the Mongolian Gobi could be a further reason for foreign space agencies to collaborate. Large-scale wind and solar farms built throughout the Gobi with South Korean and Japanese partners could theoretically provide all energy required to operate the Mars V facilities. This would be an important appeal to countries looking into long-term plans for carbon neutrality and energy security.

Beyond practical factors like location, stable project environment, and clean energy, Mongolians could use elements of their nomadic culture to contribute to space technology and innovation. As the envisioned version of life on Mars has clear similarities to a nomadic lifestyle, Mongolia has a head start in accommodating the unique living conditions required. Mars V developers have already created a concept of a reusable and portable Martian dome in the form of a Mongolian Ger. The engineering team has also laid out blueprints for a “Mars V Carrier,” adjusting tire designs and the lightweight body to match the environmental conditions of the rugged Gobi. These ideas could offer new perspectives on space innovation and would be considered a valuable contribution to any collaborating space agency, and one unique to Mongolia. 

The Mars V Plan

Mars V is a government-funded project to simulate conditions on Mars within Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. The project aims to become a hub for scientific research on planetary exploration, a major contributor towards a settlement on Mars, and a central initiative for peaceful international cooperation on space policy. The project envisions three interconnected institutions to fulfill those goals: 1) an international training academy for Mars exploration; 2) an international zone for Mars research; and 3) a space-themed tourist center.

To establish an academy for future Mars explorers, the project includes training programs focused on adapting to the environment, terrain navigation, and eventual settlement. These programs, led by foreign experts from major space agencies, would train the best astronauts from around the world and Mongolians responsible for day-to-day operations. The program would also support the growing space tourism industry, assuming space tourism eventually reaches Mars.

In addition to offering opportunities to aspiring astronauts, The Mars V Project also hopes to foster a cooperative network of researchers. The vision to set up an international zone for Mars-focused scientific and economic cooperation would include creating research opportunities and establishing an international think tank to share discoveries.  Participating national space agencies would be provided both the land and the facilities to conduct experiments, most specifically regarding soil composition and potential fertilizers. Contracts can also be negotiated with tech startups to test their surface vehicles, space suits, agricultural products, and robots in the Gobi. To encourage a sense of entrepreneurship, the Mars V Project includes a fast-track patent service and a platform for commercializing test results, research, and products for Mars exploration. On an international geopolitical level, creating an international think tank would stand as a gesture of goodwill supporting international cooperation in Mars research. By creating a grand database, the think tank would be a center of innovation for global leaders in Mars research.

Beyond focusing on space education and training, the Mars V Project also aspires to commercialize this space. With eco-tourism already an important segment of the Mongolian economy, the plan envisions creating a hospitality center, ‘Satellite City,’ to accommodate space tourists. The center would offer an opportunity for tourists to live in a space-themed capsule and experience Mars-like terrain as a makeshift astronaut. The City would simulate life on Mars and offer Mongolia an important pivot to higher-value tourism, populated with space enthusiasts and tourists alike.

How Would Mongolia Benefit?

The Mars V Project could be one of many pathways Mongolia uses to diversify its economy. Profits derived from land leasing, patent fees, and service charges could become new sources of income for the government, which Mongolia could either reinvest in the project or distribute to its citizens through other programs. Building and operating facilities such as the training center, the laboratory, and the Satellite City ‘hotel’ could also create more highly skilled jobs to address the high youth unemployment rate Mongolians face today. This would be a crucial diversification to parallel the mining industry, which has seen success in both wealth creation and cultivating local talent in mining operations and business management.

By attracting global space experts to the country, Mongolia will inspire a new generation of Mongolians to become planetary scientists or enter other STEM-related fields. As legislated by the WTO, agencies that operate in economic free zones can’t have more than 10% foreign workforce, therefore, there will be a growing demand from participating space agencies for Mongolian labor. In the short term, a Mongolian workforce within the project will be trained to learn the skills needed to operate complex facility machinery. As a result, Mongolian institutions would be established to educate this specialized labor force to Mars V and support other high-tech development. In the long term, Mongolia could export its talent to other national space agencies across the globe and advise on building and operating simulation facilities in other countries. In short, Mongolia will be able to cultivate high-tech talent similar to how it developed a specialized workforce for the mining industry, creating both a skilled worker base for future entrepreneurial innovation and an experienced corps of experts valuable to any space agency worldwide.

On an international geopolitical level, Mongolia has always dreamed of being an indispensable part of the global supply chain. The adoption of the space program at full speed could potentially integrate Mongolia into any nation’s space exploration program. By involving its space agencies in the Mars V Project, global players such as the US, Japan, India, and the European Union would have a vested interest in Mongolia’s geopolitical safety and serve as important moderators and insurance mechanisms for Mongolia in case of Russian and Chinese intervention.  Similarly, the exchange of peoples and ideas would not only bring an awareness of Mongolia’s political situation to academic communities worldwide but would also help young Mongolians connect in a new way to the outside world, through space innovation.

Lots of Work to Do

The Mars V Project is still a long way from implementation. For starters, the team hasn’t fully concluded its study on the Gobi’s soil composition, which could affect its marketability to major space agencies. In addition, the team has not fully calculated the cost to build (including importing high-level technology) and operate the facility (both in terms of money and energy), how long it is projected to build the facilities, or the pricing model for land use and development charges to space organizations, tourists, or tech startups.

Ecology, archaeological preservation, and mining may pose additional concerns. With recent discoveries of rare Saurolophus dinosaur bones and projected discoveries of critical mineral deposits in the Gobi, the Mars V Project would most likely have to collaborate with archeologists and mining entrepreneurs for land rights and allocation. However, these challenges should be resolvable, as the vast area of the Gobi would be more than sufficient to provide each the land they require.

Funding sources and rights to ownership for Mars V could turn into a political concern. Based on the current proposal that infrastructure and facility construction would be funded by foreign space agencies, the project could quickly turn into a bidding war for influence.  Significant investors would also demand priority access to the facilities creating leverage that might not be in Mongolia’s long-term interest. The battle for access could also create international political tensions, putting Mongolia in an even more difficult geopolitical position. To address those concerns, a project like Mars V should seek funding from international finance organizations such as the IMF or the World Bank instead, to ensure that no sources of funding come with political baggage or vested political interests.

Even if Mongolia could successfully launch the international think tank they envision as part of the Mars V Project, it will be difficult for Mongolia to benefit from the intellectual property created through that collaboration. National space agencies or tech startups will refuse to share the value of their intellectual property (IP) for the sake of their own national security or economic benefit. Likewise, Mongolia would be reluctant to share rights to any of its homegrown IPs. Therefore, any information shared within the international think tank would also be found in the public domain. In choosing between having a data center that shares information or a secret lab that protects innovation, Mars V can’t have both ways.    

Conclusion

Mars V has the potential to be an interesting high-tech addition to Mongolia’s economic and geopolitical evolution, but its leaders must be careful to establish a legal framework, economic incentives, and support from the Mongolian people. Perhaps most importantly, they will have to navigate complex international politics, a skill set in which Mongolia has proven to be adept.

On a macro-level, the Mars V Project reflects Mongolia’s Third Neighbor Policy, an initiative for Mongolia to reach out to nations beyond their landlocked neighbors, China and Russia, to immunize themselves from Russian and Chinese influence and leverage. Typically, Mongolia adheres to this initiative by creating and leading various multilateral organizations, winning support through their engagement in international organizations, and trading this goodwill for beneficial diplomatic relations with adversarial nations. Similarly, Mongolia’s mission to Mars is not solely for space exploration, but rather to create a center for international cooperation and innovation. The project reflects Mongolia’s greater geopolitical ambition, to assert its value as an important interlocutor for international dialogue and collaboration. By presenting itself as a uniquely positioned and non-threatening partner in space exploration, Mongolia can strengthen its geopolitical ‘insurance policy’ through cooperation, goodwill, and vested interests.

 Image sourced from AMR Photography | CC License, no changes made

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 showed the Western World just how dependent they had become on a globalized energy market, and how easily this dependence could be weaponized. With oil prices having increased 300%, entire populations faced blackouts, extending even to the White House Christmas Tree whose lights remained unlit. Fifty years on, the world is facing a similar scenario. Energy has again been weaponized on both the demand- and supply-side: Russia has limited gas exports to Europe, and Europe has banned the import of Russian oil and coal. The developing conflict in the Middle East could bring further disruption to global markets.

In the fifty years since the Embargo, policymakers have understood the need to prevent history from repeating itself. In 1973, Nixon launched Project Independence, a commitment to develop “the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.”¹ In a similar move, Britain started drilling oil and gas from the UK Continental Shelf in the North Sea, becoming a net exporter of energy in the 1980s. However, tighter regulation, higher taxes, and political pressure resulted in production peaking in 1999 and falling precipitously since. By 2005, Britain had again become a net importer of both oil and gas.²

This trend has had, and will continue to have, grave impacts for national defense. A reliable source of energy is required to keep inflation and the economy stable, the bedrock of political power. Oil and gas have very few substitutes: while electricity can be generated through other means, oil has a virtual monopoly as fuel for transportation, whilst gas dominates in heating and boiling. This makes a nation’s individual economy highly vulnerable to energy shocks, placing importers at the mercy of nations able to inflict one. Given that over half the world’s gas reserves are located in Russia, Iran, and Qatar, this is not a position any Western country wants to be in.³ Moreover, beyond protecting one’s economy, reliable sources of oil and gas in defense contexts are necessary for projecting hard power. Domestic manufacturing requires large amounts of energy, as does military deployment. Gilbert Metcalf’s study on the Economics of Energy Security plainly stated that “energy is an integral part of military readiness and a critical military input,” looking to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as clear indicators of the importance of maintaining fuel supply.⁴

Energy security is therefore vital for national security. Following the International Energy Agency, this article will treat it as the product of short-term and long-term security. In the short term, an energy system must be able to respond quickly to changes in supply and demand, avoiding shortages. In the long term, a country must have sufficient investment and capacity to meet its energy needs. The UK, as has been made clear over the last two years, has neither. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, energy prices soared whilst oil and gas production continued to fall. There is an obvious argument to be made that the best way of reaching energy security, whilst also being able to pursue climate goals, is through investment in renewables and nuclear. Indeed, these already constitute 35.8% of total electricity generation, projected to rise to half by 2025. However, over the next decade, relying on renewables and nuclear is infeasible: they take many years to install, electric vehicles are far from being ubiquitous, and gas still predominates in electricity and heating. To be clear, climate goals are of paramount importance. The UK should absolutely seek to phase out coal and limit oil as quickly as possible, and the gradual phasing out of natural gas should also take place eventually. However, to safeguard national security in the short-term, the UK needs to promote North Sea gas, as there are currently no better substitutes.

Crucially, this article does not advocate becoming self-sufficient in oil. Given oil is a fungible commodity whose price is determined in global markets, self-sufficiency in oil does virtually nothing for energy security—oil can always be bought from other countries, and supplying more North Sea oil would do nothing to lower prices as it constitutes such a small portion of total supply. To illustrate: in 2008, the UK was self-sufficient in petroleum products but was still affected by a global spike in prices, resulting in protests against the high costs of petrol. Achieving energy security with oil thus depends on breaking oil’s monopoly as a fuel source through the adoption of electric vehicles, and ensuring a multitude of suppliers so that none can create disruption. Back in 1913, Winston Churchill recognised that “safety and certainty in oil lie in variety, and variety alone.” Having an adequate stockpile of oil and petroleum products is also important, as it can be used to alleviate shortages in the very short term. Nonetheless, there is still no need for increased oil production as stockpiles can be accumulated through buying oil on open markets.

In contrast, the economics of natural gas are markedly different. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is a fungible commodity as it can be shipped around the world, with most of the UK’s LNG coming from the US and Qatar. However, the majority of gas into the UK comes via European interconnectors and pipelines from the North Sea, where the quantities and prices are agreed in long-term contracts and cannot be diverted. Whilst this arrangement makes supply immune to fluctuations in global markets, it makes natural gas especially vulnerable to hostile states restricting supply, as happened with Russia. Even relying on gas from the EU carries its own security problems. The UK is in a worse negotiating position post-Brexit, with a weak pound making imports costlier, and the EU have restarted stockpiling gas, which restricts supplies to the UK. Furthermore, the EU faces accusations that its three major energy companies (EDF, E.ON and RWE) do not respond to market forces, which resulted in acute gas shortages in the UK in 2006.⁵ By increasing gas production in the North Sea, the UK can ensure future supply at low prices that isn’t subject to interference by other states.

There are also environmental arguments for increasing the UK’s gas output. When faced with shortages of oil and gas, as in 1973, 2006, and 2022, or if cloudy weather and slow winds reduce output from renewables, as happened in 2021, the UK needs to find additional fuel elsewhere. When energy prices are high enough, the West often turns to coal—this was indeed the UK’s primary response in 2006 and Germany’s in 2022. Moreover, even with demand and supply unchanged, all the gas that the UK produces itself can displace the LNG that would otherwise be imported. This lowers carbon emissions as LNG’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions (produced through drilling, refinement and transportation) are four times greater than those of North Sea gas, making total emissions from North Sea gas 18% lower overall. In addition, depleted oil and gas fields in the North Sea make perfect sites for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and the revenue earned from issuing gas licenses and taxing energy companies can be invested in the green transition. From 2008 to 2012, the UK government earned roughly £10bn a year from North Sea oil and gas. This stands in stark contrast to the 2023 offshore wind auctions which did not have a single bidder and thus made a loss.

In summary, the UK government should promote North Sea gas to strengthen national security and help the environment. Expanded licensing, less punitive taxes, and fewer regulatory hurdles to drilling would all boost the UK’s gas output with the aim of once again making the UK a net exporter of energy. By ending dependence on gas from abroad and reducing reliance on oil, the UK insulates its economy from shocks and safeguards national defense. Moreover, since North Sea gas has fewer emissions than LNG, oil, or coal, can kickstart CCS, and generates revenue that can be invested in the green transition, this shift has positive environmental benefits. In the long run, the UK must transition to a zero-carbon economy powered by nuclear energy and renewables, but this utopian ideal is far off. Over the next decade, whilst green energy is built up and transport is electrified, we still need to meet our demand for energy whilst limiting emissions as far as possible. Self-sufficiency in natural gas is the solution.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Photo of the Troll A platform taken from the SouthEast. The Troll gas field is the largest gas discovery made in the North Sea, Photo by Øyvind Knoph Askeland | Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons | CC License, no changes made

1. Quoted in Metcalf, Gilbert E. 2014. “The Economics of Energy Security.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 6: 155-174. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-100913-012333. ↩︎
2. Abdo, Hafez, and Reza Kouhy. 2016. “Readings in the UK Energy Security.” Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy 11, no. 1: 18-25. doi:10.1080/15567249.2011.588669. ↩︎
3. Bird, Jenny. 2007. “Energy Security in the UK: An ippr FactFile.” Institute for Public Policy Research. Accessed May 3^rd 2024. https://pmt.physicsandmathstutor.com/download/Geography/A-level/Notes/WJEC/Energy-Challenges-and-Dilemmas/Energy%20Report.pdf. ↩︎
4. Metcalf. “The Economics of Energy Security.” ↩︎
5. Bird. “Energy Security in the UK: An ippr FactFile.” ↩︎

André Marinus de Ruyter is a South African businessman who in December 2019 was appointed CEO of Eskom, South Africa’s largest state-owned electricity company. But in December 2022, de Ruyter tendered his resignation as CEO after stating that a lack of political support had made his position “untenable.” On the following day at work, he unknowingly drank a cup of coffee that had been laced with cyanide. After surviving the assassination attempt, de Ruyter now works in the US and is a Senior fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. In this interview, he speaks about his tenure at Eskom, political corruption in South Africa, and solving the nation’s ongoing energy crisis.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Haywood: Could you summarize your career and what has brought you now to Yale and the Jackson School?

De Ruyter: I’ve been working in the energy sector for more than 30 years. I started in coal, I’ve worked in natural gas, I’ve worked in oil, I’ve worked in electricity. I worked in many African countries – Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Nigeria – and then also lived for a period in China where I led a very large energy project, and I also ran a business in Germany for a while. My really broad range of international experience eventually culminated in my being appointed to the position of Group Chief Executive of Eskom, the South African national power utility. I was in that job for a period of three years. That sounds like a very short time, but it was the longest tenure of my ten predecessors. So it was quite a remarkable achievement in and of itself to stick it out for that long 

Eventually, I was confronted with a significant degree of corruption and malfeasance in the energy business there in South Africa. That made it extremely challenging to turn the business around and to implement some of the decarbonization initiatives that I had identified and for which I’d obtained significant financing from the international and multilateral financing communities. I then tendered my resignation. I also wrote a book about my experiences at Eskom, Truth to Power, that has been a bestseller. The Guardian in London has nominated this as one of the top five books by whistleblowers internationally. I was also recently nominated one of the top 100 Most Influential Africans by New African magazine. 

I was very happy when the opportunity came along last year for me to share some of my experiences and insights into decarbonization and climate finance with Yale. This opportunity is mainly due to the Jackson School, but also because of the Yale School of the Environment and School of Management, where I am currently lecturing on climate finance with a particular emphasis on developing countries. 

Haywood: That’s fantastic. If we can back up to right before you joined Eskom – what drove you to want to take the position as Group Chief Executive, especially when you knew about the high turnover rate among Eskom’s leaders in the past?

De Ruyter: I’ve often described my motivation as a combination of naivety and idealism. I strongly believe in a sense of civic duty: I think that citizens who sit on the sidelines and criticize and complain without being prepared to go out there and be part of the solution to the problems that they’re criticizing, forfeit their right to complain to a certain extent. If you’re not prepared to be part of the solution, if you’re not prepared to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in the mud and sort out what irks you in the society that you live in, then maybe it’s time for you to go look for another country. 

So when I received the offer, I thought to myself that, yes, electricity shortfalls, corruption – these are major issues plaguing South Africa. I had been fortunate enough to gain experiences that could be relevant in helping to address these shortfalls. And when the call came to ask whether I would be interested (it wasn’t a job that I applied for I must add) I accepted. I said, I’ll do this because I feel it’s my duty as a South African to do so. 

Kushi: I’m curious to learn more about Eskom’s leadership and how appointment to that role works. How did the government decide on you? What do you think the future leaders of Eskom will need to do to turn it around? 

De Ruyter: I guess that I was a fairly controversial appointment. For key government and parastatal appointments, of which the Eskom job certainly is one, the ruling party and government typically appoint somebody who is a loyal party member and can be counted upon to toe the party line. I definitely don’t fall into that category as I was a member of a political party thirty years ago, but since then, I’ve had no formal political affiliation, and certainly have not been a supporter of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party in South Africa. Be that as it may, I ran an industrial company as chief executive, where the chairman was the former Central Bank governor, similar to the chairman of the Federal Reserve in the US. Eventually, this gentleman left to become South Africa’s Minister of Finance. He and I got along really well at a personal level. There was a lot of mutual respect, I have a very high regard for his integrity and intellect. He was instrumental in suggesting me as a potential candidate for the job. Apparently, this was after they had already offered the position to 23 other candidates, who had already turned it down. I was the last man standing. 

Darragi: Mr. de Ruyter, the South African government has made several proposals for reforming Eskom. One of them is to divide Escom into three separate entities for generation, transmission, and distribution. Do you think that this proposal is efficient? And if not, what is perhaps another alternative that you propose? 

De Ruyter: I think this type of structural utility reform is absolutely critical for the electricity industry in South Africa to move forward. It’s not a particularly novel structural reform; this path has been trodden by, I think at last count, 126 other countries, where generation was separated from the transmission business and from the distribution business. It’s pretty much how the US electricity industry is set up as well, obviously subject to appropriate regulation and oversight to ensure that the environment is protected and that the rights of the consumer are protected, and so forth. In order to attract sufficient private investment in energy, and in particular to the generation sector which is where the biggest demand is for new capital, a disaggregated utility has proven to be a critical enabler in other cases. The old days of a monolithic monopolistic utility that could supply electricity at a rate below the cost of production, to a small minority of people in the country – those days are gone for good in South Africa. And there’s absolutely no way in which that construct can, or should, be resurrected. I’m fully supportive of that structural reform; it’s the right way forward for the utility to go.

Haywood: We’ve been dancing around the topic of the South African energy crisis for a bit here and I just want to make sure we take a step back and ask you, what do you think the root causes of the current energy crisis are and what is the context that led to the current situation?

De Ruyter: I think for students attending the Jackson School this can serve as a bit of a case study, really, as to what happens when there’s a policy failure. So in 1998, the South African government published a white paper, which was essentially a policy document that set out what the objectives are for dealing with the electricity industry going forward. And in that document, a mention was made that Eskom would no longer be allowed to build new generation capacity because the paper said there would instead be reforms to the energy sector that would allow the private sector to come in and build that generation capacity.

Now, building that generation capacity was crucial due to two factors. First, an expected growth in consumption, bearing in mind that the economy was growing and the largely African community that had been disadvantaged in terms of electricity supply, amongst many other things, under the apartheid era, were now being served with electricity connection, so the demand for electricity had suddenly increased substantially. The second element is that it was already anticipated back then that the aging coal fleet would have to be retired and replaced. Any mechanical piece of equipment has a finite age – you don’t see many 50-year-old cars on the road anymore, they all eventually break down and then need to be replaced.

Now, what happened was that the government effectively told Eskom they may not build new power stations but did not follow through on the policies required to enable the private sector and private investments to come in and fill in that gap of electricity demand. As a consequence, the reserve margin that South Africa had available very quickly got eroded by poor performance from the aging fleet, exacerbated by corruption, as well as an increase in demand. And that led to the first incidences of load shedding, which are rotational blackouts imposed on the community from between four to twelve hours per day. Load shedding is quite onerous and disruptive not only to domestic life but also obviously to business and industry. This has now been a feature of the South African landscape for 22 years and counting. The whole situation is really a classic case study of what happens if ideas are not translated into policies that are not translated into legislation and then implemented in order to achieve the objectives that governments have in mind.

Kushi: You mentioned a little bit about corruption in South Africa and Eksom, and it’s something I’ve heard you talk about in interviews before. What do you think made Eskom particularly vulnerable to corruption?

De Ruyter: I think that this has been the result of the change in the nature of Eskom from a standalone power utility that had one objective – to generate, transmit, and supply electricity at the lowest possible cost – to what is known as a state-owned enterprise, run by a board that was appointed by the ruling party. And that created a temptation to appoint people who would be pliable, people who would accede to the wishes of politicians, who wouldn’t have moral qualms about engaging in corrupt practices. That’s exactly what happened. There have been many cases that have gone through the courts here or have been exposed in the media that contained the elements of what’s called state capture, where the resources of the state are abused by politicians in corrupt association with private sector actors, and where these malfeasances then translate into corruption. And you actually create an environment where corruption can thrive, because you allow the normal principles of good corporate governance to be thrown out the window.

Just to prove the hypothesis that I’m putting forward, just about every state-owned enterprise, – and there are over 400 of them in South Africa, some are big and some are small – just about every one of them has been a hotbed of corruption since changing this model. So there are clear structural reasons why corruption got a foot in the door very soon after this change in political oversight and political involvement, or even interference, in running the affairs of state-owned entities.

Haywood: Why do you think corruption in South Africa is so persistent, especially given its broad recognition among the people? Public figures like you have called out corruption, I’m thinking of the recent commission into the subject, the Zondo Commission, which gave a very deep dive into looking at corruption in South Africa. It’s a very acknowledged problem. But what makes it so stubborn?

De Ruyter: You know, one of the spokespersons of the government, Smuts Ngonyama, made a very revealing comment about five, six years ago. He said, “I did not join the struggle [against apartheid] to be poor.” So there is this prevalent notion that access to the levers of power entitles you to access to financial wealth. Of course, one must be very careful. You cannot blame only the politicians, because in every corrupt relationship, there are two parties. There’s a corruptor and a corruptee. I think we absolutely need to acknowledge that private sector actors gleefully participated in the corruption. Some of them were very well-known international names: Deloitte; McKinsey; SAP, the German software company; and ABB, which is a major Swiss company. So it’s a two-way street.

But I do think that the opportunity that people had to abuse the positions of power that they were put in without appropriate checks and balances, and without the right consequence management in terms of successful law enforcement prosecution, followed by exemplary terms of incarceration; in the absence of those normal measures of control, corruption just took over and ran like wildfire. There was a specific focus by the ruling party, the ANC, to reduce the effectiveness of the anti-corruption entity, an independent investigative body called the Scorpions. The Scorpions were disbanded at the insistence of the annual Congress of the ANC which said we can’t have these people prying into our affairs. This was the same conference at which the very effective but fairly unpopular President of the African National Conference, Thabo Mbeki, was unceremoniously defenestrated and replaced by Jacob Zuma. And if you’re familiar with the Zondo report, you’ll know that during the Zuma years, state capture and corruption became completely rampant. This was because the institutions that were supposed to maintain adequate oversight over government procurement practices, which is how funds flow from government to private sector actors, were deliberately dismantled and undermined.

In your studies, you’ve likely already come across a book called Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. What that book really is about is institutions. Once you undermine institutions, that’s when states fail. Corruption and undermining of institutions has not particularly got anything to do with Africa, per se. The United States also went through periods of rampant corruption and the undermining of institutions. You might argue that’s an inevitable cycle that societies go through. But we certainly are in the middle of fighting corruption in a very challenging and very significant way.

Kushi: What do you think are some strategies that South Africans, whether they be government members or people in the private sector can take to stop corruption?

De Ruyter: One of the big elements that should be implemented is to ensure that there’s adequate transparency in public procurement. Thirty years ago, tenders – bids for providing goods or services to public entities – were opened in public and the numbers were read out in public. Now, of course, some of these tenders are very complicated, they’re very technical, they’re subject to adjustment, and they’re not always easy to compare. But the transparency that is introduced by a public opening of documents, so that there’s no opportunity to “lose” a bid, or there’s no opportunity to quickly adjust the numbers, because it’s opened right there when everybody’s present, and all the bidders can say “yes, that’s the number that I wrote into my document.” That public opening, I believe, is one of the critical steps.

There’s an old saying, ”sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Transparency in any public process is a sine qua non for good clean governance. And unfortunately, the public procurement processes in South Africa are incredibly complicated. They have scoring mechanisms that are based on adjustments for the race, gender, age of the bidders. In that complicated process, of course, the opportunity arises for non-value-adding intermediaries to inject themselves into the process. Also, by the deployment of bribes, brown envelopes, paper bags, cars, and even in a couple of instances, cows that are delivered to farms, people can influence the process in a way that would in a transparent environment not be possible.

Darragi: Mr. de Ruyter, while we are on the topic of transparency, I have seen references by some journalists to an “energy apartheid.” Some allegations have been made that Eskom segregates load shedding based on where you are in South Africa. For instance, townships like Soweto (which has a large black population) have experienced more load shedding than places like Sandton (which is more white). What is your response to those allegations?

De Ruyter: I think you need to distinguish first of all between load shedding, which is a way of managing the demand for electricity in order to allow the available generation capacity to meet the demand. That is done on an equitable basis across the board. There’s absolutely no discrimination. But what has happened in a place like Soweto, for example, is that years ago, at the advent of democracy, some irresponsible politicians went to Soweto and said, as a reward for supporting the ANC, we will absolve you from ever having to pay your electricity accounts. As a consequence, the payment rate in Soweto during my tenure at Eskom was hovering between 13 and 17%. Now, just what happens in the US, if you don’t pay your bill, electricity gets cut off. The utility just comes and disconnects you. But this has nothing to do with race. It’s got everything to do with whether you buy your bill. And the extent to which there is widespread meter tampering, electricity theft, and nonpayment, those feature quite strongly in electricity distribution, and unfortunately, the perception has been created that this has somehow correlated to race, which is not the case at all. In fact, I think Eskom was particularly lenient in still providing electricity in spite of the fact that revenue collection was so poor.

Haywood: Speaking of revenue collection, one of the things we noticed is that South Africa still exports energy to its neighboring countries. Do you think that behavior is incompatible with South Africa resolving its energy crisis? And to what extent do you see solving the South African energy crisis as involving other regional actors?

De Ruyter: South Africa is one of the members of the Southern African Power Pool, which pools electricity supply into one interconnected grid, across countries. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Eswatini, Lesotho, and obviously South Africa are all members. South Africa dominates the power pool – it generates about 73% of all the electricity that is consumed in the pool. But it is also a significant buyer of electricity from Mozambique, for example. Mozambique has a very large and very successful hydroelectric project called Cahora Bassa and there’s a high voltage direct current line that has been supplying electricity from the north of Mozambique to South Africa for many, many decades. So if we were not a member of the pool, if we did not provide electricity to other countries, and we did not buy electricity, then the shortfall in our own electricity would be even greater.

Now, what needed to be done on this issue was a couple of quite unpopular things which I introduced. I said, first of all, Eskom needs to make a profit on the electricity that it sells and that is a process where we significantly increased the tariffs charged to our neighboring countries. But also we said, like we did with Soweto, well, you actually have to pay for the electricity that we provide you. We went so far as to demand cash upfront from Zimbabwe, which had an extremely poor payment record before we would supply them with electricity because we just had no faith in their ability or their willingness to pay for the electricity offered and supplied. So I think regional integration generally is a positive thing.

We know that Namibia, for example, is going to be investing massively in renewable energy and for South Africa to be able to tap into those resources as part of the Southern African Power Pool makes absolute sense. So I think buying and selling electricity across the region is a good idea and is to be supported.

Kushi: There’s been some talk about South Africa trying to transition away from coal. What proposals are out there for that transition? Do you think that they’re going to work?

De Ruyter: This was one of the main thrusts of my tenure as Group Chief Executive of Eskom is that I very quickly came to the conclusion that we had to produce new generation capacity as quickly as possible. If you compare different technologies, the lowest cost and the quickest to deploy these days are solar and wind energy. Even if you ignore the negative environmental impacts of the externalities imposed on the environment by coal-fired power generation, which you shouldn’t, it still makes perfect sense to roll out wind and solar as quickly as possible. There are technical challenges with the fact that these are variable renewable energy sources, but these can be resolved and certainly only become a critical problem for the grid when you get to a very high penetration of renewable energy sources.

This drive ran into considerable opposition, in particular from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, which had a focus on prolonging the life of coal-fired power stations because it had a dual mandate to both promote mining and provide policy direction for the energy industry. The inherent conflict between those two mandates, in addition to the very significant political sway held by heavily unionized coal workers, caused the process to be, pardon the pun, undermined.

That being said, we still made very good progress in our energy transition. We were able to deliver a groundbreaking $8.5 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership agreement, which was signed between the US, UK, France, Germany, the European Union, and South Africa at COP 26 in Glasgow. We were able to secure more than a billion dollars through concessional financing to repurpose and repower a decommissioned coal-fired power station, in order to ensure that the transition to a decarbonized electricity industry would be a just one. This is something that I feel very strongly about: without ensuring that there is social and environmental justice that accompanies the transition, it is highly likely that those kinds of energy transitions will not succeed. They will be held up by interference through the vested interests who have been involved in the coal industry or have made investments in the industry over many decades and have legitimate concerns about the transition’s effects.

South Africa is very fortunate in that it’s got some of the best wind and solar resources in the world. I’m still firmly of the view that in the absence of any sort of likelihood that the government will solve the energy crisis, there will be a de facto liberalization of the electricity sector that will cause the electricity industry in South Africa to decarbonize. Just in the last year, privately distributed energy generation through renewables exceeded the capacity of one major coal-fired power station in South Africa without any incentive or support from the government. So load shedding is forcing people to take matters into their own hands and decarbonize. Whether the government wants to promote that or not is no longer relevant. It’s happening because people need electricity to live their lives.

Haywood: Do you foresee a future in South Africa where the growth of the private sector energy generation and renewable energy push out Eskom or state involvement in energy? Or how do you see that future playing out?

De Ruyter: In the future, I think all of Eskom is going to be very different. As we spoke about the restructuring of Eskom, I think we were going to have an Eskom which will have a very reduced presence in the generation sector, which will be largely operated by the private sector. It will still have a substantial presence in the transmission industry, that’s a natural monopoly – it is infrastructural in nature. Typically, that is the last element of the electricity industry where the state maintains a significant degree of involvement. The distribution parts of the industry, I think, will either go into the hands of private distributors, very much like mobile phone operators, or it will go into the hands of local authorities. So the role of Eskom, as I said earlier, the monolith that was able to meet all of South Africa’s electricity needs, that’s going to change and it’s going to become a much smaller, much more focused business with a significantly smaller presence in generation and distribution.

Kushi: While we’re looking ahead, do you see yourself returning to South Africa in the future? And if not at the moment, what will it take for that to happen?

De Ruyter: I’d love to return to South Africa. It’s still a place that I regard as home. It’s a place that I’m very fond of. I’m fond of the people, I think we’ve absolutely fantastic people who live in the country. So yeah, I absolutely intend to return to South Africa. Much as I appreciate the opportunity of living and working in the US, I do miss South African sunshine and South African wine.

Haywood: I wanted to ask you personally about the circumstances under which you left both Eskom and South Africa. I’ve heard that’s a complicated and fraught story. Can you tell us about that?

De Ruyter: Yeah, it was a very interesting period. On the day that I tendered my resignation to the chairman of the board, I returned to my office and was provided with coffee. That coffee turned out to be laced with poison, a mix of cyanide and insecticide – which by the way is apparently a Russian recipe. I’ve since learned more about poison than I ever wanted to. So I became quite ill. But fortunately, I survived the attempt. I was told by a toxicologist that I was very, very lucky to escape. I won’t go into all the gory details but yes, I made it.

Soon after that, as I was serving my notice period, I started to speak up more openly about the reasons why we have not been able to make as much progress as people wanted to on solving the energy crisis. In particular, I spoke out about some of the vested interests that underpinned corrupt behavior in Eskom: coal theft by organized crime of very, very significant proportions, and to a large extent a supine police force that wasn’t particularly interested in ensuring that there were consequences for these criminal activities. That then led to some considerable pressure on me at that stage. I was driving around in a bulletproof Land Cruiser accompanied by bodyguards due to various threats that I’d received. So life was getting quite interesting. You always watch movies, but once you start living it, it’s not to be recommended.

I decided I’d rather go abroad. This was achieved by some sleight of hand. At that stage, various people were looking for me who wanted to apprehend me and force me to testify and so forth. I’m told they were watching the airport in Johannesburg, so I then hitched a ride on a private jet to Cape Town, got on a plane there, and made my way out of the country.

Haywood: Wow. That is truly remarkable. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you and everyone close to you. How do you manage to stay committed to speaking out against corruption and working to improve South Africa even when there’s all this persecution against you?

De Ruyter: You need to be a bit bloody-minded when it comes to principles relating to honesty and integrity. I’ve often been asked, you know, why? Why did you speak out? And I guess one strategy I could have followed was to just keep my mouth shut, attend all of my farewell parties, and just go off quietly into the sunset. I could have had a very nice retirement and served on a couple of boards, and that would have been the end of the story. 

But I do think that there is something like principle, there is something like right and wrong. By not speaking out when you see something that is wrong, you become complicit. You become part of the problem, even if you’re not a direct beneficiary of corrupt activity. If you’re aware of it, and you don’t speak out, you are compromised, and you are complicit. And I just thought that the people of South Africa deserve better. They deserve to know why the lights were off for many hours every day. It was not due to people who work hard and try their best, but it was due to a toxic combination (I guess I shouldn’t use that phrase) of poor policy and corrupt and criminal activity.

Kushi: South Africa has an election this year. What are you looking for? What are your hopes?

De Ruyter: One of the frustrations with the South African political environment is that parties have been quite poor about articulating their policies. If you look at the ANC, I think we know what the ANC’s policy agenda is because they’re in government: they publish white papers, they push laws to Parliament, so we know what the policies are. But most, if not all, of the opposition parties define themselves by being opposed to the ANC. So their election strategy, by and large, is to say, please vote for me, because I’m not the ANC, which I find to be a very unsatisfactory approach to canvassing votes from the electorate. Yes, you might not be the ANC, but does that mean that you’re going to be better or worse than the ANC? And if you don’t tell me what your policies are going to be, well, I’m really going to struggle to make that decision 

There is a dearth of good policy thinking in South Africa, that is coherent, that is consistent, that hangs together across the various aspects of policy. For example, if you think about energy policy, it’s not only about energy policy, it’s about environmental policy, it’s about fiscal policy, it’s about industrial policy. All of these policies have to hang together and integrate. Sitting in Parliament and shouting at the Minister for not doing his or her job is necessary, I guess, for there is some form of political accountability. But what is your alternative agenda? What I’d be looking for in the selection is a party that articulates policies that I believe have a high degree of successful implementation to address the very significant challenges that South Africa faces.

Haywood: I think we have some time left for a few more questions.

Darragi: If the government chooses to make Eskom a private company, do you think that would help solve its corruption problems? If it’s not owned by the government, would this mean fewer opportunities for corruption and corrupt actors to be in control?

De Ruyter: I think more private involvement in the electricity industry would be beneficial. I think it’s highly unlikely that the current ruling party will privatize Eskom because it’s ideologically opposed to doing so. Part of the ANC’s policy is a very strong preference for significant state control and state involvement in the economy. I don’t think that privatization is likely to happen.

What I do think is that transparent market-based competition will be a good check on corrupt activity in the electricity industry. Once you’ve got monopolies, and you’ve got the coincidence between politics and commercial interests, that’s generally when things go off the rails. But when people have to compete for business, and they are properly regulated, and there’s adequate transparency, things are much better. So, my preferred solution is not so much to privatize Eskom, but it is to enable far more private sector participation in the electricity industry.

Kushi: Do you have any message to the next generation of leaders in South Africa that are looking at this corrupt situation and thinking what hope is there? How are we going to get out of this?

De Ruyter: South Africa is a very interesting country. We seem to have this knack for peering over into the abyss and at the moment when it seems inevitable that we are likely to topple over the edge, we manage to pull back and somehow make it work. This characterized the greatest challenge of all, which was the transition from apartheid to democracy. The transition was fraught with risk and the potential for very, very significant bloodshed and eventually went off largely peacefully, which was a minor miracle at the time.

I still back the resilience and character of the ordinary South African – let’s forget about the politicians – to do the right thing, to do the decent thing, and to pull through. But they need to do so with proper leadership. My appeal would be to the next generation to step up to the plate, do your duty, and take the lead in doing what is right for the country and its people.

This interview was conducted by Nour Darragi, Owen Haywood, and Ty Kushi on January 30, 2024.

This essay won an Honorable Mention in the 2023 YRIS High School Essay Contest for its response to the following prompt: “What is a current issue in international relations or world affairs that does not receive enough attention in global media?”

Electronic waste, or e-waste, has arisen as a critical global concern in today’s digitally-driven society, posing substantial environmental and health dangers. However, amidst this worldwide challenge, the Philippines stands out as a country disproportionately plagued by the e-waste problem. Wherever one goes, streets are ridden with broken appliances and discarded gadgets; the Philippines is one of Southeast Asia’s leading e-waste generators, with an estimated 3.9 kilograms of e-waste per capita in 2019.¹

Despite its vital significance, the dilemma of e-waste in the Philippines has received little attention in the worldwide and national media, hampering efforts to identify long-term solutions. This essay aims to shed light on the environmental impact of e-waste in the Philippines, investigate the factors that contribute to its under-reporting, and review current activities addressing the problem.

E-waste comprises old electrical devices; cell phones, tablets, computers, televisions, and other home gadgets that are outdated or undesirable. These are all examples of e-waste that have become a depressingly common and dangerous sight in the Philippines; based on a report by the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Philippines generated 32,664.41 metric tons of waste electrical and electronic equipment in 2019.² While most e-waste still contains usable materials like valuable metals, it also holds substances that are hazardous to one’s health, the environment, and the climate. As such, the rise of e-waste production and mismanagement in the Philippines is a pressing concern for the country and its future.

The urgency of eliminating e-waste in the Philippines is made clear by its effects on the Philippines’ environment. The country is a haven for a wide variety of aquatic life, including coral reefs, mangrove forests, and endangered species; improper e-waste disposal directly endangers these delicate ecosystems and results in irreparable damage and biodiversity loss. The deterioration of Manila Bay, a cornerstone of the country’s capital, underscores this issue.

Located in the heart of the city, Manila Bay is surrounded by landfills and similar informal disposals loaded with discarded electronics, gadgets, and other sources of e-waste. From there, toxic substances and chemicals seep into the ground and leach into the surrounding waters. Silt sediment samples taken from the bay’s seabed in 2019 reported traces of heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and zinc which are suggested to be the results of discarded e-waste and factory sewage.³ This has damaged the waters to the extent that most invasive species in other tropical estuarine ports cannot survive in Manila Bay.⁴

Nevertheless, the matter is under-reported both nationally and globally due to several factors. Primarily, limited awareness among the general public about the hazardous nature of e-waste and its detrimental impact on the environment and health prevents the subject from receiving widespread attention. To most, once an electronic outlives its usage, it is discarded with no further thought. According to a study by engineers of the University of the Philippines Department of Environmental Engineering, there were about 22 million mobile phones discarded in 2016, with 95 percent of the respondents of a separate survey having no knowledge of proper e-waste disposal.⁵

Moreover, the complexities of e-waste supply networks make reliable monitoring and tracking of disposal techniques difficult. Given that e-waste trade routes involve several intermediaries, it is difficult to identify guilty parties and hold them accountable for inappropriate disposal. Predatory economic interests similarly contribute to e-waste under-reporting, with more developed countries exporting their electronic garbage to developing countries like the Philippines under the pretense of waste management solutions or other similar misleading terms. In one such case, 25,610 kg of mixed plastic rubbish packaged in 22 sling bags packaged as “assorted electronic accessories” were sent back to Hong Kong after being shipped to Mindanao, the Philippines’ second-largest island.⁶

While the concern of e-waste remains prevalent in the Philippines to this day, efforts are being made to tackle the topic, with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (Republic Act No. 9003) passed in 2000. The government act calls for proper waste disposal practices, including e-waste management, and encourages the construction of material recovery facilities, trash separation, and recycling. Additionally, international organizations such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have collaborated with national agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to further address this point. One example is the E-Waste ‘to! Iwasto! Project, which hopes to raise awareness of proper e-waste management and provide Filipinos with the means to dispose of their household e-waste properly; through this, the e-waste can be safely salvaged and recycled.⁷

Despite this, however, the Philippines’ lack of infrastructure for safe and efficient e-waste recycling limits the success of any attempts to solve the issue. The government faces challenges in developing recycling sites that are equipped with adequate equipment to handle a wide range of electronic devices, and e-waste is commonly recycled informally “by hand,” which exposes the recyclers to hazardous and carcinogenic substances present.⁸ While progress has been made as UNIDO and the DENR have continued to install more e-waste disposal facilities across the country, it is still a long journey before the problem can be successfully managed in the future.⁹

In conclusion, e-waste in the Philippines demands immediate attention and concerted action. E-waste has troubled the Philippines for decades since the rise of industrialization and globalization, and will likely continue to harm the country’s citizens and environment unless further steps are taken and current efforts are pursued. It is through careful planning and collaboration between the government, organizations, and consumers that the issue of e-waste can finally be resolved; only through collective efforts and knowledge can the environment be safeguarded, human health protected, and a better future ensured for the Philippines and the world at large.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Waste handling site in Patayas, Manila | Image sourced from Global Environment Facility

1. “The Philippines: making money making e-waste safe | UNIDO.” United Nations Industrial Development Organization. (September 28, 2022). https://www.unido.org/news/philippines-making-money-making-e-waste-safe.
   ↩︎
2. “EMB: National policy, regulatory framework already in place for e-waste management.” Department of Environment and Natural Resources. (October 29, 2020). https://www.denr.gov.ph/index.php/news-events/press-releases/1918-emb-national-policy-regulatory-framework-already-in-place-for-e-waste-mngt.
   ↩︎
3. Enano, J. O. “Silt taken from Manila Bay positive for heavy metals.” Inquirer News. (March 21, 2019). https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1098243/silt-taken-from-manila-bay-positive-for-heavy-metals#ixzz5kAhAmLqh.
   ↩︎
4. Vallejo, B. M., Aloy, A., Ocampo, M., Conejar-Espedido, J., & Manubag, L. “Manila Bay Ecology and Associated Invasive Species.” Springer International Publishing: In Coastal research library, 145–169. (2019b). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91382-7_5.
   ↩︎
5. Ballesteros, F., Jr., & Galang, M. “Estimation of Waste Mobile Phones in the Philippines using Neural Networks.” Global Nest Journal, 20(4), 767–772. (2018). https://doi.org/10.30955/gnj.002534.
   ↩︎
6. “Philippines Returns Illegal Plastic and E-Waste Shipment to Hong Kong, China (Groups Insist Philippines Not a Global Trash Bin) | IPEN.” International Pollutants Elimination Network. (2019, June 4). https://ipen.org/news/philippines-returns-illegal-plastic-and-e-waste-shipment-hong-kong-china-groups-insist.
   ↩︎
7. Dilim, J. “E-waste ‘to! Iwasto project reaches La Union.” PIA. (October 28, 2022). https://pia.gov.ph/features/2022/10/28/e-waste-to-iwasto-project-reaches-la-union.
   ↩︎
8. Argosino, F. “How to manage e-waste: Bring to a treatment, storage and disposal facility.” Manila Bulletin. (April 6, 2022). https://mb.com.ph/2022/04/06/how-to-manage-e-waste-bring-to-a-treatment-storage-and-disposal-facility/.
   ↩︎
9. Dilim. “E-waste ‘to! Iwasto project reaches La Union.” https://pia.gov.ph/features/2022/10/28/e-waste-to-iwasto-project-reaches-la-union.
   ↩︎

Estimated to cost almost 5 billion dollars at completion and holding 74 billion cubic meters of water at capacity, Ethiopia’s new hydroelectric dam will produce more power than any other hydroelectric source on the continent and has been advertised as a cheap energy option for Ethiopia and its neighboring states [1].  

While the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam’s (GERD) construction has been shrouded in controversy for over a decade, the dam’s production of power for the first time just over a month ago has resparked tensions between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbor, Egypt [2].  For Ethiopia, a nation with over 60% of its citizens off the electric grid, the GERD represents an opportunity to provide a large portion of its population with the benefits of an electrified world and become a regional leader in clean and renewable energies [3]. Egypt, however, relies heavily on the waters of the Nile River and views the dam, which obstructs the natural flow of one of the Nile’s two main tributaries, as an “existential threat” [4].  

Soliciting the majority of its funding through government employee wage donations, normal tax revenue, and contributions from the Ethiopian Diaspora, Ethiopia built the GERD with autonomy in mind [5]. The nation reportedly refused funding offers from Egypt and dismissed Western financial institutions in fear that those who lent would try to dictate how Ethiopia used the dam, especially in years of low precipitation or drought [6]. This fear was not misplaced as Egypt, Sudan (another nation dependent on the Nile), and their allies have all called for Ethiopia to pause dam construction or filling at some point in the past decade.

Egypt, who attempted to kill plans for the GERD before the project commenced, claims Ethiopia is in violation of international laws, citing a 1959 agreement made between Egypt and Sudan which gave the two nations all rights to the Nile’s waters and a 1929 Egyptian treaty with England which gave Egypt veto power over any constructions anywhere along the Nile [7]. While these treaties are dated, Egypt has succeeded in halting past projects, using its alliances and these agreements to maintain the status quo.  Additionally, at the behest of the African Union, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia signed a “Declaration of Principles” on topics of the Nile which Egypt asserts Ethiopia is breaking through its unilateral decision to fill the dam [8]. Ethiopia has responded to these accusations with claims that the GERD will help prevent devastating floods in Egypt and neighboring Sudan, but the nation has noticeably yet to commit to releasing water from the dam in the event of seasonal drought as their priority remains producing electricity, a fact which concerns Egypt greatly.

Egypt’s unease is not without merit.  With 97% of its drinking and irrigation waters coming from the Nile, any disruption to the flow of the river could result in consequences that are felt for years [9]. Farmers in Egypt see the dam as the source of an impending doom, and hieroglyphic carvings which tell the story of past devastating droughts have only served to raise anxiety [10][11]. Even without the threat of the GERD, Egypt is a water-poor country with only 570 cubic meters of water available annually per capita, an alarmingly low number given that a nation with less than 1,000 cubic meters of water per capita is water impoverished [12]. And more troubling is that by 2025 that number is predicted to dip below 500 cubic meters per person due to population growth, poor water management, climate change, and, according to some, the GERD [13]. Unexpected and unannounced decisions by Ethiopia to divert water have made some in Egypt feel overly vulnerable, and historical fears that Ethiopian empires of old would divert the Nile in the event of a conflict with Egypt have resurfaced, causing further turmoil between the two nations [14][15].

Though Egypt has not faced any water crises thus far despite the GERD’s filling nearing completion, Ethiopia’s success in producing clean energy this past month has paved the way for a troubling precedent among other Nile tributary nations.  Encouraged to set up their own dams, these nations represent further dangers to the ever Nile-dependent Egypt.  While an agreement might eventually be made with Ethiopia, the possibility of more dams sprouting up along the Nile and its tributaries keeps Egypt in a perpetual state of risk.  

For now, it appears that the GERD, seen by many in Ethiopia as a symbol of economic and technological progress, will continue producing electricity despite Egypt’s wishes, but with Egypt’s water concerns not going away and climate change continuing to impact the amount of water available to the country, the GERD remains a threat that Egypt might one day decide is too great to challenge with words alone. Further, the lack of existing international water laws and the scarcity of clean water throughout the globe hint at more conflicts of this nature occurring in the future with starker outcomes than what has played out between Ethiopia and Egypt thus far a distinct possibility.  These two nations can set the right example for the rest of the globe by agreeing to set standards regarding the dam and water regulation, but with the scarcity of water only increasing each year, nations might begin taking actions that make the verbal sparring and posturing between Egypt and Ethiopia look like child’s play.

Works Cited:

[1] “About Gerd – Mygerd: The Official Giving Platform for Gerd.” Accessed April 5, 2022. https://mygerd.com/page/about-gerd.

[2] Ethiopia Starts Generating Power from River Nile Dam.” BBC News. BBC, February 20, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60451702?pinned_post_locator=urn%3Abbc%3Acps%3Acurie%3Aasset%3Ad9e1a044-4020-4120-80c4-e9b47f64babd&pinned_post_asset_id=60451702&pinned_post_type=share.

[3] Person, and Dawit Endeshaw. “Ethiopia Turns on the Turbines at Giant Nile Hydropower Plant.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, February 21, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-turns-turbines-giant-nile-hydropower-plant-2022-02-20/.

[4] Mbaku, John Mukum. “The Controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.” Brookings. Brookings, March 9, 2022. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2020/08/05/the-controversy-over-the-grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam/.

 [5] “Financing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam – Researchgate.” Accessed April 5, 2022. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326656445_Financing_the_Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam.

[6] Maasho, Aaron. “Insight-Paying for Giant Nile Dam Itself, Ethiopia Thwarts Egypt but Takes Risks.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, April 23, 2014. https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-energy-idUSL6N0N91QM20140423.

[7] Mbaku, John Mukum. “The Controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.” Brookings. Brookings, March 9, 2022. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2020/08/05/the-controversy-over-the-grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam/. 

[8] “Declaration of Principles on Renaissance Dam Is ‘Exclusive Agreement’ Binding Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan Together: Intl. Law Expert.” EgyptToday, June 23, 2020. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/88909/Declaration-of-Principles-on-Renaissance-Dam-is-exclusive-agreement-binding. 

[9] Al Jazeera. “Ethiopia Turns on the Turbines at Controversial Nile Mega-Dam.” Energy News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, February 20, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/20/ethiopia-electricity-production-gerd-blue-nile-mega-dam.

[10] “Ancient Inscription Reminds Modern Egypt of Drought Risk.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, September 16, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-nile-history-idUKKBN267292. 

[11] Al Jazeera. “’Means Our Death’: Egyptian Farmers Fear Effect of Ethiopia Dam.” Drought News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, August 20, 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/20/means-our-death-egyptian-farmers-fear-effect-of-ethiopia-dam.

[12] “Ancient Inscription Reminds Modern Egypt of Drought Risk.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, September 16, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-nile-history-idUKKBN267292. 

[13] “Egypt Has a Water Problem-and No, It’s Not Only the Gerd.” Atlantic Council, June 2, 2021. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/egypt-has-a-water-problem-and-no-its-not-only-the-gerd/. 

[14] “Ethiopia Starts Generating Power from River Nile Dam.” BBC News. BBC, February 20, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60451702?pinned_post_locator=urn%3Abbc%3Acps%3Acurie%3Aasset%3Ad9e1a044-4020-4120-80c4-e9b47f64babd&pinned_post_asset_id=60451702&pinned_post_type=share.

 [15] “Who Owns the Nile?” Origins. Accessed April 5, 2022. https://origins.osu.edu/article/who-owns-nile-egypt-sudan-and-ethiopia-s-history-changing-dam?language_content_entity=en#:~:text=The%20Nile%20has%20been%20essential,the%20gift%20of%20the%20Nile.%E2%80%9D.