The word "development" is a complicated one. To use a literal definition of "improvement in the economy and well-being of a place relative to another place" we have a gigantic latitude of interpretation. There was a time that development experts focused on Great Britain as a classic example to be replicated and indeed it was one of the first nations to become wealthy and industrialized but it was not necessarily a model that all other cultures, climates and geographies could easily copy.
Britain and many early industrializing nations used dams for hydroelectric power, as reservoirs for potential water emergencies, all sorts of uses that were seen as aids to development. Were they? Well it depends. Many nations did not have an infrastructure for the hydroelectric power generated, or the water might be wasted on things like gigantic pools for tourists while regular people didn't have enough to drink. The above picture of pools was one of the things I saw when I flew through Egypt. Sure, tourist money brings with it many benefits, but are those widely distributed to the population? It's a mixed case in this example.
The Aswan Dam here in southern Egypt created a large man made lake, lake Nasser is the largest man made lake in the world. The lake itself goes over the border to the neighboring country of Sudan and many of the Nubian people who live in this region were displaced. But many of them also benefit from money generated locally, here are some that I met while I visited.
As we boated around this huge manmade lake, we purchased some jewelry from the locals. There are many different ethnicities and types of people in Egypt. Like many places, you might have a specific idea in your head about a country and then when you actually there you will discover a giant range of diversity. These people you see in these pictures are mostly the Nubian people who originate here along the Nile but have spread out through many areas of Africa and then world.
I asked some of the locals if they remember life before the Dam and the large man made lake. The people I spoke to said the state has investment money into the region that might not have come if there was not the dam. It allows for cheap electricity in the region which is nice for their households as well as local businesses which have cheaper costs than they might elsewhere in the country. There were drawbacks as well they said.
This is a picture I took of the Abu Simbel temples. I mentioned that the Nubian people used to be settled on the Nile but when the reservoir was created that entire area was submerged under the lake. Obviously many people had to move, but what was lost was more than that. This entire temple was moved, a huge undertaking. Other historical objects or structures were not so lucky. In the rest of Egypt, new treasures are being discovered all the time and these have intrinsic cultural value as well as actual financial value. As you can see from the picture, tourists do still come to the region but new artifacts are rarely found as they are underwater.
I didn't take that last picture as all of my pictures of the actual dam turned out blurry but that's the way it goes sometimes. Somethings the locals didn't mention to me about the pros and cons of the dam is how the rich soil along the Nile was put there from annual floods that used to happen. In central Africa there are seasonal rains and they flow into the Nile and leaving behind extremely fertile soils that sustained some of the earliest agriculture in the world. These floods no longer come so any soil degradation or loss is not restored. And plants and animals can of course no longer migrate up or down the Nile. As you can see, there was plenty to ponder when deciding to put in the dam. Given the history of the country, these were likely not very democratic but that is a topic for another post.
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