Navigating Reconciliation at Home and Peacebuilding in the Region: Lessons from Ethiopia”

After years marked by complex internal violence and regional instability, over the past seven years Ethiopia has initiated major efforts to address conflicts — including the devastating Tigray conflict (2020–2023) and ongoing violent confrontations in the Amhara and Oramia regions – as well as deep-rooted historical grievances inherited from past regimes. Most notable among these efforts, the Ethiopian National Dialogue and the Transitional Justice Policy, adopted following the landmark Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) signed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government in November 2022.

Alongside these domestic developments, Ethiopia has also sought to promote peace at the level of the Horn of Africa region. Most notably, it transformed its previously hostile relationship with Eritrea into one of cooperation. It has also been active in mediation efforts in relation to the conflict in Sudan.  

This event will examine these various initiatives—their design, their implementation, as well as the processes that made them possible—and draw lessons from them as valuable examples of contemporary peacebuilding efforts aimed at breaking cycles of division and fostering peace and unity in a region that continues to face instability and violence. By looking at national and regional initiatives together, this discussion will also provide an opportunity to reflect on their interplay, and to consider how concurrent peacebuilding efforts at both levels can prove mutually reinforcing.