Addis Ababa — Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has hailed Ethiopian Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as a powerful symbol of African self-determination, declaring it a living proof that the continent can defeat energy poverty even when locked out of international financing.
Speaking in a widely watched interview with a globally renowned South African comedian, writer, producer, and television host, Trevor Noah, Mottley said Africa’s most urgent development crisis remains access to electricity, an issue often ignored amid global debates about artificial intelligence and advanced technology.
“When the world is talking about technology, 600 million people out of 1.4 billion in Africa do not have electricity,” she said.
Mottley pointed to Ethiopia’s flagship hydropower project as a historic achievement born out of resistance and resolve.
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She noted that major international financial institutions refused to finance the dam, forcing Ethiopians to rely entirely on domestic resources.
“They turned inward between the central bank–the National Bank of Ethiopia) and ordinary citizens,” she said.
“Citizens buying bonds, citizens giving donations. This is the 21st-century Adwa.”
Her reference evoked the 1896 Battle of Adwa, where Ethiopian forces defeated Italian colonial troops, a victory that electrified the Black world and became a cornerstone of Pan-African consciousness.
“Adwa showed the world that Black people could achieve something after centuries of domination and subjugation,” Mottley said, adding that the triumph helped lay the foundation for Pan-Africanism and later independence movements, including those inspired by the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress.
Describing the sheer scale of the GERD, Mottley said the dam, the largest in Africa–stretches nearly two kilometers wide and rises approximately 550 feet.
“You have to see it to believe it. I have never seen water move at that speed,” she said.
Underscoring the political and symbolic weight of the project, she added: “They did it when the world said no. It took 14 years–but they did it.”
Mottley warned that the same global systems that denied Ethiopia financing continue to reflect colonial-era power structures, cautioning that without urgent reform, today’s international economic and political order threatens the long-term stability of nations across the Global South.
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Her remarks positioned the GERD not only as an engineering feat, but as a continental manifesto–a statement that Africa can finance, build, and control its own future.
