Hydro-electric dams have long fascinated policy-makers, who have equated them with ‘development’. In recent decades, they have attracted criticism because of the ecological, social and cultural costs associated with their construction. No country in the world has more experience with dam-building than China, currently involved in the construction of more than 250 dams outside its borders. Beijing does not simply provide the capital and technical expertise for these ‘temples of modernity’, but increasingly its growth model, heavily reliant on infrastructure and state control, fascinates its partner countries and many African regimes crave Chinese-built dams as symbols of civilisation and prestige.

China's excellent relations with Sudan have been a critical factor, directly and indirectly, in the development of the latter's ambitious Dam Programme. Together with the Agricultural Revival Programme, big dams are an integral part of Khartoum's ‘hydro-agricultural mission’, the Al-Ingaz regime's high modernist attempt at recalibrating northern Sudan's political economy and dealing with the imminent secession of South Sudan. They offer the possibility of mass electricity generation and are critical for irrigation, thus helping to feed Sudan's growing population and Arab-African markets further afield.