In this episode of The Horn, Alan speaks with Babatunde Afolabi, former Africa Director at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), now Director of Political Affairs at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, about mediation and conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa. They discuss HD’s discreet work facilitating dialogue between conflict parties, and why the Horn’s history, politics and geopolitics make regional cooperation such a challenge. They turn to Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where the Pretoria agreement that halted two years of devastating war risks unravelling, and to Oromia, where HD- and IGAD-facilitated talks between the government and the Oromo Liberation Army came close to a deal before collapsing. They also discuss Sudan’s hard-to-resolve war, prospects for dialogue with Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and why locally grounded dialogue remains essential to ending wars.

For more, check out our Horn of Africa page.

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