Judging by the look of things, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi seems to have a dream for Ethiopia. He appears to be determined to turn his poverty ravaged country into a powerhouse of East Africa. Excitingly, what he has in mind is not to become a military or political power of the region, a curse African leaders are often trapped into. His ambition is rather to lighten up the whole of East Africa with electric power that is generated from an  environmentally sound source, hydroelectric power.

The climax of this came when top ministers of his cabinet made an unusual mass appearance at the signing of the 1.75 billion dollar deal for the Gilgel Gibe III dam earlier this year with the Italian Salini Construction. Even Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin was there, if not Trade and Industry Minister Girma Birru.

Major infrastructure projects are launched frequently enough in Ethiopia; why was this one gaining so much interest, observers wondered?

The answer is power, of the electric kind. It has become abundantly clear that the Prime Minister and many of those advising him are absolutely convinced of one thing: that the faster Ethiopia takes advantage of its unique hydroelectric potential, the better it will be for the country, the region, and the continent on several different levels.

Studies are backing their enthusiasm.

According to the World Bank, the electric power situation in Sub-Saharan Africa is dire. Currently, yearly generating capacity in the region (excluding South Africa) is 30 gigawatts (gw), about equal to Poland’s. Jamal Saghir, the Bank’s energy director, says that Africa is in a power crisis, and that shortages are only increasing.

And indeed, you notice it throughout the region. Tanzanians can go for seven days without power at all; full 24-hour power cuts are common. Kenyans lose power for three days in a row; all to the delight of generator exporters in China and their local importers. You have Djibouti left only with a diesel-powered generator and its high cost to households: 0.25 dollars against Ethiopia’s 0.06 dollars.

The obvious observation is that the region needs more electricity and that donor financiers, like the World Bank, should help launch programs to provide it. And they are. The World Bank dispenses about two billion dollars every year on power accessibility projects with hopes to double that amount. The European Union has launched a “Partnership for Infrastructure” to do the same. It is generally agreed that power generation and accessibility is the key to the future.

Enter Ethiopia. As the water tower of Africa, it has a vast potential in hydroelectricity. And with every indication showing that oil prices are high and will remain so for a while (if not forever), generating power from hydroelectric sources suddenly becomes extremely interesting. Even oil rich Sudan is shivering at the thought of building more diesel fuelled power plants; the price of electricity generated from fossil fuels is quickly becoming unrealistic.

Hydroelectric power, then, is becoming something Ethiopia has long been pitied for not having: cash generating energy source - like oil - desperately wanted by its neighbours and whose discovery or development has an almost magical capability of transforming a society profoundly. Generating power is the absolute key to development (like oil), and all of a sudden, Ethiopia, if it plays its cards right, might have an abundance of it.

Claudio Lautizi, Salini’s general manager for International Division, even described it as Ethiopia’s “white oil”, especially in a global picture where oil is getting scarce and ever more expensive.

Ethiopia’s huge potential of generating over two billion kilowatts an hour puts it 126th out of 211 countries in the world. United States is first with 3.8 trillion, followed by China (2.1 trillion) and Japan (over one trillion).

Obviously, Ethiopia is still quite a ways off from being Nigeria or Venezuela, oil rich developing countries that have the oil fuelled ability to throw their weight around geo-politically. Nevertheless, the road ahead, as provided by hydroelectric power, is clearly sketched out in the Prime Minster’s visions of the future.

And why not? If history is offering the country a golden opportunity, then the Prime Minister and all those around him are absolutely right to take it.

Ethiopia’s current hydropower production is 750mw (0.75gw), but according to experts, that number can increase to as much as 32gw, slightly more than all of Sub-Saharan Africa’s production capability today. If the Revolutionary Democrats’ deserve any credit for their years in power, nothing could match what they have accomplished in the development of infrastructure; power generation perhaps being the most prominent.

When the Revolutionary Democrats assumed power in 1991, Ethiopia had only 455mw, generated from three dams. Three new projects were completed over the past decade while one is at its final stage: Tis Abay II (80mw) and Finchaa IV (34mw), and Gilgel Gibe I (184mw). The latter is supplemented with a follow-up project (Gilgel Gibe II) that added tunnels to generate 425mw.

But, more is yet to come: Salini is building a hydroelectric power project on the Belesa River, Amhara Regional State, at a cost of 5.4 billion Br, that is projected to have a generation capacity of 460mw upon completion. Up in the north, a Chinese and Ethiopian (Sur) joint venture is undertaking a 1.9 billion Br project to finish a hydro electric dam on the Tekeze River, which will be generating 300mw when it is completed in 2008, although no one seems to be passionate about this particular project within the rank and file of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo).

Nevertheless, these four projects are the first for EEPCo to have at the same time in its half-century history. It is a drive to succeed on its 25-year power sector expansion master plan, developed two years ago; part of it is a five year strategic plan designed to expand the electric coverage in Ethiopia to 50pc by 2010, generating over 4,000mw electric power. It will cost the government an estimated 53 billion Br. The successful completion of Gilgel Gibe III alone is believed to help EEPCo accomplish 40pc of this target.

It is no surprise then, that the electric power needy in the region are lining up to get into the energy business with Ethiopia. EEPCo is already deep into implementation with Djibouti to export electricity. And two weeks ago, utility executives from Kenya and Sudan were in town to hammer out deals for their own flow of Ethiopian water-generated electric power. Inevitably, Egypt will be next on the list.

These are, for sure, exciting time for Ethiopia and its agents involved in the electricity scheme. And it is not being too idealistic to say that creating power interconnections between Ethiopia and its neighbours has benefits well beyond the hard currency that exporting power will bring government coffers.

If regional neighbours begin depending heavily on the flowing rivers of this country’s highlands to power their development, then geo-political realities will be revolutionised from the bottom up. This type of inter-dependability can only engender more inter-dependability and, who knows, maybe hydroelectric power would end up being the irreplaceable glue that stabilises a region that, with the obvious exception of Somalia, has been already heading that way. It is here where Meles’ dream should be recognized and accorded due appreciation.

But after effusing on the hopes for the future, it is important to address the present. EEPCo is still a utility that has a long way to go in providing electric power to the country as a whole. Electric access is only about 50pc in Addis Abeba and hovers in the teens in rural areas where 85pc of the population lives. More than a century after Thomas Edison lit up New York City, electric power is still a luxury in this country.

To be precise, getting excited about the export of hydroelectric power to neighbouring countries and all the goodwill that might be created has absolutely nothing to do with expansion of electric capability within the country’s borders. In reading the breathless headlines about Gilgel Gibe III, one can suspect that a confusion on this fact is being allowed to fester. Exporting electricity will generate foreign currency income, but how that income gets spent is a whole other question.

This is not to say that EEPCo has no ambitious goals for expanding electric accessibility in the country (goals that the World Bank suspects might be unrealistic.) But increased gigawatts coming out of dams does not necessarily mean that the gigawatts make it to villages.

Which raises another question about the Prime Minster’s enthusiasm: his high profile visitor this week was Chief Olusengun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria, a man often accused of not equitably distributing the generous proceeds of his country’s vast oil reserves to the masses at large. Commentators often call oil supply a curse to developing countries, as the ruling elites become fixated on the easy cash oil generates and forgo development for the country as a whole. If all the gigawatts pumping out of the hydroelectric dams go to exporting power and the cash fails to provide electric infrastructure and accessibility for EEPCo-untouched areas of Ethiopia, then the great visions for a hydroelectric future become yet another curse the country hardly needs.

But for now, the four major Ethiopian hydro-electric dam projects currently in progress seem like a great promise. Let us just hope, by making their benefits felt throughout society, that they stay that way.