Looming high above the Blue Nile and stretching nearly two kilometres across, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been a nation-building project and potential economic revolution 14 years in the making.

With its inauguration today, it is officially Africa's largest hydroelectric project.

While the dam — which cost the equivalent of almost $6 billion Cdn — has stirred deep concern in downstream countries such as Egypt, its completion is a point of pride for Ethiopia, symbol of self-reliance and a turning point for a nation where millions still cook over firewood and charcoal and burn kerosene for light.

"Ethiopians are jubilant," said Moses Chrispus Okello, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa. "The dam is a history-changing piece of infrast

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