Editing Hydropower (section)

====Africa====
	Foreign powers and [[intergovernmental organization|IGOs]] have frequently used hydropower projects in Africa as a tool to interfere in the economic development of African countries, such as the [[World Bank]] with the [[Kariba Dam|Kariba]] and [[Akosombo Dam]]s, and the [[Soviet Union]] with the [[Aswan Dam]].<ref>{{cite journal | author=Gocking, R. | journal=African Studies Review | title=Ghana's Bui Dam and the Contestation over Hydro Power in Africa | volume=64 | issue=2 | pages=339–362 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date= June 2021 | doi=10.1017/asr.2020.41 }}</ref> The [[Nile River]] especially has borne the consequences of countries both along the Nile and distant foreign actors using the river to expand their economic power or national force. After the British occupation of [[Egypt]] in 1882, the British worked with Egypt to construct the first Aswan Dam,<ref>{{cite book | author=Ross, C. | date= 2017 | title=Ecology and power in the age of empire: Europe and the transformation of the tropical world | publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=37–38| isbn=978-0-19-182990-1}}</ref> which they heightened in 1912 and 1934 to try to hold back the Nile floods. Egyptian engineer [[Adriano Daninos]] developed a plan for the Aswan High Dam, inspired by the Tennessee Valley Authority's multipurpose dam.

When [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] took power in the 1950s, his government decided to undertake the High Dam project, publicizing it as an economic development project.<ref name="Hydropolitics, Economy, and the Asw"/> After American refusal to help fund the dam, and anti-British sentiment in Egypt and British interests in neighboring [[Sudan]] combined to make the United Kingdom pull out as well, the Soviet Union funded the Aswan High Dam.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dougherty |first1=James E. |title=The Aswan Decision in Perspective |journal=Political Science Quarterly |date=1959 |volume=74 |issue=1 |pages=21–45 |doi=10.2307/2145939 |jstor=2145939 }}</ref> Between 1977 and 1990 the dam's turbines generated one third of Egypt's electricity.{{sfn|McNeill|2001|pp=169–170}} The building of the Aswan Dam triggered a dispute between Sudan and Egypt over the sharing of the Nile, especially since the dam flooded part of Sudan and decreased the volume of water available to them. [[Ethiopia]], also located on the Nile, took advantage of the Cold War tensions to request assistance from the United States for their own irrigation and hydropower investments in the 1960s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Swain |first1=Ashok |title=Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Egypt: The Nile River Dispute |journal=The Journal of Modern African Studies |date=December 1997 |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=675–694 |doi=10.1017/S0022278X97002577 }}</ref> While progress stalled due to the [[Ethiopian Revolution|coup d'état of 1974]] and following 17-year-long [[Ethiopian Civil War]] Ethiopia began construction on the [[Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam]] in 2011.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gebreluel |first1=Goitom |title=Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam: Ending Africa's Oldest Geopolitical Rivalry? |journal=The Washington Quarterly |date=3 April 2014 |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=25–37 |doi=10.1080/0163660X.2014.926207 }}</ref>

Beyond the Nile, hydroelectric projects cover the rivers and lakes of Africa. The [[Inga dams|Inga powerplant]] on the [[Congo River]] had been discussed since Belgian colonization in the late 19th century, and was successfully built after independence. [[Mobuto Sese Seko|Mobutu's]] government failed to regularly maintain the plants and their capacity declined until the 1995 formation of the [[Southern African Power Pool]] created a multi-national power grid and plant maintenance program.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gottschalk |first1=Keith |title=Hydro-politics and hydro-power: the century-long saga of the Inga project |journal=Canadian Journal of African Studies |date=3 May 2016 |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=279–294 |doi=10.1080/00083968.2016.1222297 }}</ref> States with an abundance of hydropower, such as the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] and [[Ghana]], frequently sell excess power to neighboring countries.<ref name = "Tsikudo">{{cite journal |last1=Adovor Tsikudo |first1=Kwame |title=Ghana's Bui Hydropower Dam and Linkage Creation Challenges |journal=Forum for Development Studies |date=2 January 2021 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=153–174 |doi=10.1080/08039410.2020.1858953 }}</ref> Foreign actors such as Chinese hydropower companies have proposed a significant amount of new hydropower projects in Africa,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gocking |first1=Roger |title=Ghana's Bui Dam and the Contestation over Hydro Power in Africa |journal=African Studies Review |date=June 2021 |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=339–362 |doi=10.1017/asr.2020.41 }}</ref> and already funded and consulted on many others in countries like [[Mozambique]] and Ghana.<ref name = "Tsikudo" />

Small hydropower also played an important role in early 20th century electrification across Africa. In South Africa, small turbines powered gold mines and the first electric railway in the 1890s, and Zimbabwean farmers installed small hydropower stations in the 1930s. While interest faded as national grids improved in the second half of the century, 21st century national governments in countries including South Africa and Mozambique, as well as NGOs serving countries like Zimbabwe, have begun re-exploring small-scale hydropower to diversify power sources and improve rural electrification.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Klunne |first1=Qim Jonker |title=Small hydropower in Southern Africa – an overview of five countries in the region |journal=Journal of Energy in Southern Africa |date=August 2013 |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=14–25 |doi=10.17159/2413-3051/2013/v24i3a3138 |doi-broken-date=10 March 2025 |id={{CORE output|231111067}} |url=https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/jesa/article/view/3138 }}</ref>