The intense Ethiopian sun burns down as thousands of volunteers in green shirts, school children alongside politicians, take up shovels and saplings in a publicly broadcasted spectacle to plant millions of trees in a single day. They are participating in the world’s largest state-led reforestation campaign, Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative, with official figures claiming that […]
Tag: Ethiopia
Africa 2.0: The Rise of African Agency in International Politics
The extensive literature on post-independence African development highlights the challenges and opportunities for African agency in international politics. In essence, agency is the ability to influence or exert power on other parties or coalitions. Between the 1950s and 1990s, African states glimmered in global news as victims of corruption, civil wars, frequent regime changes, brutal […]
Will Somaliland Gain Recognition?
Tensions are surging between Ethiopia and Somalia following what the Somali government views as a severe breach of its sovereignty. The conflict stems from Ethiopia signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Somali breakaway region of Somaliland. As part of the deal, Ethiopia will gain military and commercial access to the Red Sea through […]
Ethiopia’s Tigray Crisis: Famine, Humanitarian Tragedy and Tribal Politics
The year-long conflict in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray has ushered in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Through it all—killings, looting, sexual violence, and displacement—civilians continue to pay the high price for the descent of the second-most populous country in Africa into ethnopolitical confrontations and mass starvation. In November 2020, tensions […]
Ethiopia’s Narrowing Window For Peace
Meskel Square, despite its lack of even one traffic light, is the busiest intersection in Ethiopia. It is a fitting representation of Addis Ababa, the bustling capital city of 3.6 million people which it resides in. However, on October 9th of this year, Meskel Square was ordered completely shut down. On the same day, an […]
The Country with No Majority: Interethnic Relations in Ethiopia
In a sense, every Ethiopian is a minority in their own country. Ethiopia is roughly 30 percent Oromo, 27 percent Amhara, and 6 percent Tigrayan. While the Oromo are numerically the largest group and the Amhara have historically been culturally dominant, the Tigrayans exercise an outsized influence in both politics and the economy. However, in April 2018, […]
Eritrea, a country without journalists
On September 18, 2001, as the rest of the world reeled from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, the president of Eritrea decided journalists were no longer needed in his country. Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s dictator at the time and who still remains in power, announced that all independent media organizations were to […]
Embracing Nationalism in East Africa
On September 16th outside of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, leaders of the once exiled Oromo Liberation Front gathered. Scores of supporters came to show their support, and they had not forgotten one thing: the other ethnic tribes in the region were the ones that had displaced them. Some of the supporters began attacking non-Oromo people, […]
An Eritrean Exodus
Eritrea is emptying out. Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of Eritrea’s 4.5 million people have fled the country. This is all the more remarkable considering that Eritrea is not at war. Unlike other migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Eritreans are not fleeing from armed conflict at home, but from their own government. Eritrea is […]
Lies, Dam Lies, and Statistics
Tension is brewing on the Nile. Ethiopia is building a massive dam on the Blue Nile with the swaggering name of “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.” Once completed, it will be the largest dam in Africa. Egypt and Sudan are the two downstream countries that could be the most affected by the dam, and they couldn’t […]