11–20 of 108 posts
This is not the first project like this Egypt has tried. All have failed
Egypt's developmental indicators have finally caught up to where the CEE was 5-10 years ago but with a better demographic profile, and Gulf and Asian capital and technology partners are much more hands-on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd suspect it's a transcript of a video on his (excellent) YouTube[0], hence the repetition. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/@TheB1M
It's a great channel if you don't care about any degree of technical debt and wanna see someone glaze over human rights violations in order to celebrate mega projects. I'd at least highly recommend the DeArrow extensions to de-clickbait this channel's titles. As much as I criticize the channel, I admit I can't look away
There's just an exceeding amount of signal to noise ratio when it comes to big projects. Criticism of foreign projects comes out of the woodwork by non-local sources, and yet we seem to accept the human toll on Western projects like the Hoover Dam or the Channel Tunnel. Him taking a neutral tone and accepting source materials at face value is fair.
Mega-projects have been a defining feature of human civilization since its inception, so there's ultimately not a way to cover them that is not either glamorizing or unbearably self-loathing.
This is not the first project like this Egypt has tried. All have failed
This is not the first project like this Egypt has tried. All have failed
To be fair, Egypt and Mexico made major reforms to their water usage in the past and succeeded. Compared to India, which failed abjectly.
I've been in Egypt and India - they aren't that different, and it's Indian companies that are working on and helping financing these megaprojects in Egypt via the credit line established after the pandemic [0] and it's Indian companies like Wabag that are implementing water treatment projects in Egypt [1].
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/egypt-say...
This will also drain the ancient and non-renewable Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. This is water that has been trapped for thousands of years. It is the world's largest fossil water system and is of immense scientific value.
Not to mention the historic Nile Delta wetlands that will be lost from diversion and the massive increases in CO2 emissions necessary to pump the water at the elevation of the desert (which is higher than the Nile basin). Also the inevitable salination of soil means any economic benefits to this project are on a countdown.
Wiki: "A feddan (Arabic: فدّان, romanized: faddān) is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only non-metric unit which remained in use following the adoption of the metric system. A feddan is divided into 24 kirat (Arabic: قيراط, qīr…
Although the aquifer water plan itself is largely failing. The underground water was much more saline than they originally thought, so from space you can see lots of failed irrigation circles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, Egypt and Mexico made major reforms to their water usage in the past and succeeded. Compared to India, which failed abjectly.
How did India's water usage reforms fail? I've been in Egypt and India - they aren't that different, and it's Indian companies that are working on and helping financing these megaprojects in Egypt via the credit line established after the pandemic [0] and it's Indian companies like Wabag that are implementing water treatment projects in Egypt [1]. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/egypt-say...…
It's practically a project of the Egyptian military who will mostly own the land. They will grow cash crops for export to gain a source of income. This will also drain the ancient and non-renewable Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. This is water that has been trapped for thousands of years. It is the world's largest fossil water system and is of immense scientific value. Not to mention the historic Nile Delta wetlands that w…
It's a public-private project with Gulf and Asian financing and execution.
Sisi is a dictator, but he can and does execute. Look at how Egypt's developmental indicators have shot up over the past decade - that was not guaranteed, and he deftly took advantage of non-Western partners to push the reforms Egypt needs.
It's practically a project of the Egyptian military who will mostly own the land. They will grow cash crops for export to gain a source of income. This will also drain the ancient and non-renewable Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. This is water that has been trapped for thousands of years. It is the world's largest fossil water system and is of immense scientific value. Not to mention the historic Nile Delta wetlands that w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did India's water usage reforms fail? I've been in Egypt and India - they aren't that different, and it's Indian companies that are working on and helping financing these megaprojects in Egypt via the credit line established after the pandemic [0] and it's Indian companies like Wabag that are implementing water treatment projects in Egypt [1]. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/egypt-say...…
Do these Indian companies implement things in India?
Larsen & Toubro, Wabag, SP Group, EIL, Afcons, and others tend to have a chokehold on implementing and executing these kinds of projects in MENA because they co-finance projects with Gulf capital players who tend to have capital stakes in these Indian players as well.