About

Me (clicking this picture takes you to the Keys Consulting Inc. website)

My name is Patrick Keys, and I’m interested in all things related to water security (food security, climate change, dams, agriculture, renewable energy, etc). I am the founder and owner of Keys Consulting Inc., an environmental consulting and research company, that explores new ideas in the fields of water resources, ecosystem services, and climate change adaptation.

Drop me a message if you’d like to share a guest posting here, or just to chat about water!

Cheers,

Patrick

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13 thoughts on “About”

Hi Pat,
Thanks for the great series on the Nile situation. I’m currently working on my thesis at Columbia Law, regarding transboundary water law and human rights, and your writing has really helped me get a better feel for the current, ongoing situation in the region. I’d be interested on anything you have to add from the Ethiopian/upstream perspective.
All the best,
Julia Barke

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Pat on May 3, 2011 at 8:39 am said:

Hi Julia,
Glad you enjoyed the series. I didn’t cover human rights very much in my series, but since you’re thesis includes that as a component, I would add:
1. The role of human rights in Ethiopia is often used as a reason for specific activities (e.g. damming the Blue Nile for the reason of increased opportunity for individuals and communities to emerge out of poverty); these benefits have yet to materialize for the quoted recipients.
2. In light of the recent UN declaration on the Human Right to Water, Ethiopia could use this as a pseudo-UN-backed basis for storing every more water behind dams.
3. Careful monitoring of the trickling down of benefits from the Renaissance Dam (a.k.a. Great Millennium Dam), in the form of irrigation water, electricity, jobs, and other infrastructure/benefits is necessary to see if human rights were ever really part of the endgame, or just a useful tool for building a large dam to generate wealth for privileged elites.

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