Week in the Horn
(1.03.2012)
TFG ministers visit liberated Baidoa
Time to take early action before another Horn of Africa drought
Djibouti to build a new port at Tadjoura
No respect even for the dead in Eritrea
Swedish parliament debates Eritrea’s tax on exiles
News and Views:
An IGAD Ambassadors’ forum in Washington
A Sub-regional Workshop of Human Rights Education in Addis Ababa
An IGAD workshop on water resource development
A workshop on “Blue Peace in the Nile”
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TFG ministers visit liberated Baidoa
On Wednesday this week, a TFG delegation led by the Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Abdi Salan and Defence Minister Hussein Arab Isse visited Baidoa, liberated from Al-Shabaab a week earlier, the day before the successful London Conference. Al-Shabaab forces abandoned the city and fled. The former Al-Shabaab commander in Bay and Bakool regions, Moalim Jinow led one group south east towards Burhakabe on the road to Mogadishu 250 kms away; another force under Sheikh Mahad Omar, Al-Shabaab governor of Bay went south west towards Dinsor. TFG forces have already started to advance towards these towns as well as clear up other parts of Bay and Bakool including the capital of Bakool, Hudur, which has also been taken over. TFG forces with Ethiopian support have already taken over the former Manas training camp 60 kms south of Baidoa used for militia training by Al-Shabaab. In Baidoa, Ethiopian and TFG forces have been carrying out demining operations and security clearances in the city. Some of the population followed the retreating Al-Shabaab forces but a substantial majority has welcomed the arrival of the allied forces and the liberation of the city.
Defence Minister Hussein Arab Isse told journalists that the TFG delegation which included members of parliament as well as military officials had come to assess the situation in the region, the effects of the drought and of the sanctions against aid imposed by Al-Shabaab and to talk to elders to see what aid and support was needed. Health Minister, Abdiaziz Sheikh Ali, brought medical supplies with him. The delegation also held discussions with elders on how to tackle insecurity in the city and on the next steps to secure the regions of Bay and Bakool.
In Mogadishu at the weekend, TFG security forces carried a large scale security sweep in the districts of Hamar Weyne and Hamar Jahab seizing nearly 40 people with weapons and explosives. Some were suspected of being Al-Shabaab fighters, but others included people carrying illegal weapons and government soldiers carrying guns inside the city and in populated areas. On Saturday, AMISOM’s Force Commander, General Magusha met the chairmen of Mogadishu’s 16 districts to discuss ways to tighten security in the capital. General Magusha has also been holding discussions with Mogadishu authorities to coordinate efforts to ensure the protection of civilians abandoning the Afgoye corridor and returning to Mogadishu as AMISOM operations extend towards Afgoye. The Afgoye corridor has been home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people under the control of Al-Shabaab which frequently prevented humanitarian access to the corridor. General Magusha said Afgoye town was an Al-Shabaab stronghold and center for planning and coordinating terrorist attacks on Mogadishu and its leaders often held meetings there. Its people deserved to be liberated. He stressed that in any future operations, AMISOM would, as it had done in Mogadishu, take all measures to minimize harm to the civilian population. An AMISOM advance to capture Afgoye is expected soon. On Wednesday, unidentified aircraft hit Al-Shabaab positions including the Beerta-Kuwait camp at Afgoye and barricades on roads around the town.
Somali Army Commander, General Abdulkadir Dini, has again offered an amnesty to Al-Shabaab fighters who surrender. He specifically called on Al-Shabaab units in Bay and Bakool to surrender, stressing now that government forces had taken over the major Al-Shabaab base in the two regions, Baidoa, they would not stop operations until they had taken complete control of the two regions. Al-Shabaab fighters should take advantage of the amnesty offered while there was time.
The main emphasis of last week’s successful London Conference inevitably was on military solutions, on the latest welcome military successes of the TFG, its militia allies, AMISOM, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, and on the necessity for the Transitional Federal Government to sort out the political situation and its own future effectively and quickly. Another focal point was piracy and the UK has now signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tanzanian government allowing the UK to transfer suspected pirates to Tanzania for prosecution. Somaliland has also signed an agreement with Seychelles to transfer convicted pirates to Somaliland, and on Tuesday this week, the Somaliland Parliament approved a new anti-piracy law which criminalizes piracy and provides for sentences of up to 20 years. Suspects can be tried in Somaliland courts providing the crime took place in international waters, and the owners of ships involved in piracy will also face charges. A prison in Hargeisa has been refurbished by the UN.
The UK Foreign Secretary has also announced that Britain will be providing funds for the construction of a new Regional Anti-Piracy Prosecutions Intelligence Co-ordination Center in the Seychelles with the purpose of coordinating and analyzing intelligence for enforcement operations and tracking pirate financial links. The European Foreign Ministers this week announced that they had extended the EU’s anti-piracy mission, Operation Atalanta, until December 2014. Its main task has been escorting merchant ships carrying humanitarian aid to Somalia but it is now considering the possibility of extending this to take action against supplies and fuel, as well as boats, stocked by pirates onshore.
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Time to take early action before another Horn of Africa drought
A discussion on the possibility of a third consecutive year of drought in the Horn of Africa was held this week in Kigali, Rwanda. The three day Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum included Government representatives from the region, climatologists, agricultural experts and disaster risk managers. The meeting was hosted by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and IGAD’s Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) and supported by the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) which noted that the meeting was overshadowed by the world’s failure to act on previous warnings of drought in the region which resulted in thousands of deaths from famine, particularly in Somalia. Towards the end of last year a total of 13.3 million people needed assistance in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, as a result of the worst drought in the region for six decades.
The focus of the meeting was on the role of the regional climate outlook in providing early warnings for drought emergencies and other climate related disasters in the Horn of Africa. It also discussed the prospects for the current March-to-May rainy season and measures to ensure that early warning leads to early action in the event of a failure of the rains. Pedro Basabe, head of the UNISDR Africa office, noted that “Two consecutive years of drought in the Horn of Africa have resulted in catastrophe for many vulnerable communities. A failure of the rains in the coming months will leave them with little coping capacity to survive”. As a result, this year, more than ever, “it is important that climate and food security experts work closely with disaster managers to monitor any serious deterioration in the situation.”
And indeed, according to the regional climate scientific experts in Kigali, drought is likely to return to Somalia and other parts of the Horn of Africa over the next three months. Laban Ogallo, director of IGAD’s Prediction and Applications Centre said there was a “high probability of drought returning to the Greater Horn of Africa and poor rains are probable in all of Somalia, Djibouti, northern Kenya, and southern, eastern and northeastern Ethiopia.” He said that the message had now been given and it was now up to governments, civil society and the media to prepare even if the worst didn’t happen. Participants agreed it was necessary to take preventive action now, find ways to secure livestock and provide cash transfers to people.
The predictions are made on the basis of the weather patterns in the Indian Ocean where increased cyclonic activity has been drawing moisture away from the Horn. The residual effect of a dying La Nina current was also a factor. La Niña appears when the surface of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean – the world’s largest body of water – cools, and has a climatic impact in other regions of the world. La Niña was particularly strong in 2010-2011 and parts of the Horn experienced their driest period for 60 years.
Some of the highest ever temperatures of the last thirteen years were recorded in northern Kenya in January where the government is already planning contingency measures. Near normal to below normal rains have also been forecast for much of Tanzania, Burundi; Rwanda; Uganda; and western and southern Kenya. Djibouti is already facing water shortages. Pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali Region and the agro-pastoralist communities in southern Oromia as well as areas of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region are likely to face drought, though according to Ethiopia’s Meteorological Services Agency it could be expected to be less severe than last year, as most parts of Ethiopia had received good rains towards the end of 2011. Equally, the effective early warning system and drought risk management mechanisms operating in Ethiopia had managed to contain the humanitarian emergency last year. The government has been distributing food to those in need from its Emergency Food Security Reserve. It will continue to do this as well as take action for water distribution as needed in affected areas.
Many of the disaster experts cited a slow response by governments and donors to the early warning forecasts of the 2010-2011 drought in the region. There had been a lack of linkage between early warning and early action, and participants agreed that governments and people needed to take pre-emptive action on their own accord and not wait for donors to provide funds. Equally, there is no doubt that IGAD as a region still needs to have to strengthen its Early Warning and Drought Risk Management Mechanisms to respond more quickly and effectively as necessary to overcome or avoid the traumas that comes from drought and drought related disaster.
Meanwhile, it was appropriate that the fifth meeting of the Multidisciplinary Team of the FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa was held here in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. State Minister of Agriculture, Mitiku Kassa in his opening remarks called on development partners to back ongoing endeavors of Eastern African nations to ensure food security. He urged development partners to work closely with these nations particularly in the design and implementation of sustained agricultural development programs. “The agriculture sector of Eastern Africa is subject to quite numerous challenges, and it is time for the nations and development partners to act together towards realizing a hunger-free Eastern Africa,” the State Minister noted. He also called for greater attention to the concept of a green growth economy which he said was central to eliminating poverty and bringing about sustained development. The FAO Sub-regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa, Castro Camarada, stressed the need for an integrated approach to address both the short and long term development needs of the region. Government delegates and development partners as well as civil society and private sector representatives took part in the three-day meeting under the theme: “Working together for improved food security: an integrated approach to eliminating hunger from the Horn of Africa.”
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Djibouti to build a new port at Tadjoura
The Government of the Republic of Djibouti is said to have begun a pre-qualification process to select contractors for the construction of a new port at Tadjoura. The Djibouti Ports and Free Zone Authority will be organizing the construction of the new port where it plans to build and operate marine civil facilities and common services. The port will initially allow for a 30 hectare yard and a 435 meter quay. Financing is expected from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and from the Saudi Fund for Development.
The construction of a new port in Tadjoura will give Djibouti the opportunity to provide increased services for neighboring countries, in particular for the growing needs of Ethiopia virtually all of whose exports and imports pass through Djibouti. Additional facilities at Tadjoura should significantly relieve the congestion that the existing Doraleh and Djibouti ports are facing.
One among many to benefit from a new port at Tadjoura will be a Canadian company engaged in developing a project for production and export of potash, Allana Potash. The company is developing the extraction of potash at its Dallol potash project, located in the Danakil Depression in the Afar Regional State. It is already working with the Djiboutian authorities to integrate potash storage and handling facilities with the new port plans. Indeed, it is intending to construct its own port terminal at Tadjoura, to provide for product unloading and storage, shipping facilities and supporting infrastructure. These will be incorporated in the plans for the port.
With regards to the necessary infrastructural developments, highway construction by government contractors is underway to connect the Dallol potash region with paved roads to the company’s project development staging facilities in Mekelle and to the southern highway providing access to ports in Djibouti. These will provide sufficient capacity for the export of production, but according to the company, discussions are also going on over the possibility of rail links from the project to the port. Either way, it anticipates that the necessary infrastructure will be in place by the time the project is fully operational.
The company completed a preliminary economic assessment in November last year and it hopes to start project construction by the end of this year. It plans to commence production at Dallol with a yearly output of up to one million tonnes in the initial stages in 2015, reaching peak production by 2017, with the potential to expand output at the site to reach two million tonnes of muriate of potash product per year. The President and CEO of Allana Potash, Farhad Abasov, said in a statement that the company was encouraged by the admirable progress made by the Djibouti Government in the ongoing development of the transportation infrastructure: “Allana understands that both the Djibouti and Ethiopian Governments are looking to the strategic Danakil potash resource as one of the catalysts for the development of road, port and rail facilities critical to the continued economic growth within the region.
According to the company, the economic assessment was based on saturation brine solution mining with a solar evaporation method and exceeded management expectations. This method is possible at Dallol because of the year-round temperatures and the minimal amount of rainfall. The deposits are also at a shallow level so no deep drilling is required, which is another saving. An ongoing feasibility study is due in the third quarter of the year. In the meantime the company is continuing to carry out pilot evaporation pond testing, hydro-geological studies and solution mining test work. Current indications of the measured and indicated resources of the deposits are 673 million tonnes.
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No respect even for the dead in Eritrea
Since independence, Eritrea has provided a showcase for a political experiment of bizarre proportions leaving many observers asking if its leadership has even ever had any intention of ruling the country by normal methods. Eritrea is perhaps the only nation in history that has, from its inception, methodically and purposefully inculcated a sense of siege mentality within the minds of its population by deliberately creating totally uncalled for enmity with all its neighbors, and with other countries as well. The aim has apparently been to create a citizenry propelled to extraordinary heights of success driven by the unsettling if invigorating situation of being surrounded by mortal enemies. It quite simply created a situation where generations of Eritreans ended up inheriting only the struggle itself not the fruits of their long struggle for independence.
In what many considered from the outset was a Sisyphean task, Eritrea’s leaders sought to transform an impoverished Red Sea state into an African Singapore within less than ten years, trying to telescope decades into years. The strangest part of this day-dream was not the obvious difficulty of making it all happen in such a short period of time; there was no reason why Eritrea couldn’t make real economic progress if it implemented the right policies. The problem was the fact that Eritrea expected to achieve this goal by gaining access to the huge wealth of resources of the very neighbors with which it was deliberately and repeatedly cultivating enmity. Its neighbors were meant to serve both as punching bags for the martial adventures of Eritrea’s leaders and as the providers of treasure throve both to finance Eritrea’s industrialization and for potential markets for its products. It’s an attitude that the most rapacious of imperialists in vogue in the late 19th century would have been proud of. Progress towards this goal hardly moved an inch, of course, with a sizeable part of Eritrea’s population indefinitely held in virtual servitude in the name of national service. Except for the threadbare mantra of ‘self-reliance” with which the regime is so enamoured, Eritrea today is a text-book case of an Orwellian experiment gone wrong.
Politically speaking, its leaders have defied commonsense. They publicly flaunt their contempt of the very idea of entertaining pluralism while hyperbolically claiming that they are a nation of ‘one-heart and one-blood’ and unique among the rest of the world. Eritrea is certainly unique in that its struggle for independence has not provided means for further freedom for Eritreans but an end in itself for which the entire Eritrean population is being called upon to pay the price. Indeed, this ‘independence’ has become inextricably entangled with the pride and ego of one individual to the point where its true worth is seen as ensuring his tenacious grip on power. This has spawned a curious cadre of sycophants who go to great lengths to explain away the voluminous excesses and exaggerations of ‘the dear leader’ in the name of ‘protecting Eritrea’s independence.”
Because President Isaias and Eritrea’s hard-won independence are considered one and the same, the regime’s supporters stop at nothing to portray any attempt to rein in the Eritrean leader as an attack on Eritrea itself. This has unfortunately created a situation where too many Eritrean intellectuals have become complicit with the regime in perpetrating crimes against all the people of Eritrea including they themselves. Victims have joined hands with their tormentors in the Kafkaesque setting that is Eritrean politics. A quick perusal of Eritrean opposition websites gives an indication of how venomous this can get with people ostensibly opposed to the regime ripping each other apart, locked in acrimony because one side or the other seems poised to side with Eritrea’s ‘enemies’ in order to get at Isaias. It is therefore of little surprise that so many in the Eritrean blogosphere oppose sanctions against the regime ‘because this will embolden Ethiopia’ to compromise Eritrea’s independence. For many, Ethiopia remains the bogeyman against which all Eritreans should keep guard. The irony is that the real enemy of Eritreans of all persuasions is tolerated and allowed to continue with his reign of terror in order to prevent the imaginary move or an imaginary enemy.
Nothing can be more telling in this regard than the fate of Naizghi Kiflu, one of the most hated supporters of President Isaias both before and after independence. Naizghi served President Isaias in various capacities not least as a feared and loathed security head responsible for the killing and disappearance of hundreds of Isaias’s opponents. When Naizghi died on February 6th after a long illness in London where he had been receiving medical treatment, it was obviously expected that his funeral would take place in the Martyr’s Cemetery in Asmara with full honours befitting a veteran fighter. A month after his death, nobody still knows if his family will even be allowed to take his body back to Eritrea, let alone whether it will get an official ceremony. Whatever the reason for the regime’s refusal to approve of the return of Naizghi’s body, there is no doubt it is sending a message: It is President Isaias that has full control of all Eritreans alive or dead and he is not willing to let this go. The Eritrea that tens of thousands of people died for is now the private turf of a man who denies a burial place to those who were willing to die for him. This obsession with morbid excitement may be pathetic, but the strangest thing is that there still are those, even among the opposition, who try to find concealed meanings beneath the callousness. This is what President Isaias has reduced Eritrea and Eritreans to.
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Swedish parliament debates Eritrea’s tax on exiles
Last week, the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) discussed the 2% diaspora tax levied on all Eritreans overseas by the Government of Eritrea. All Eritreans living abroad are forced to pay two percent of their annual income to the government in order to be able to pay visits to the country to see their families, send money back home or otherwise use any Eritrean facilities.
The taxes have been described in a UN report as the largest source of income for the Eritrean government, and as one of the sources to provide for Eritrea’s sponsorship of the Al Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and of other opposition groups Eritrea supports in its widespread efforts to destabilize peace and stability in the Horn of Africa. Many Eritreans object to the tax and a number of those living in Sweden filed a report with the police last November claiming that the practice amounted to tax collection by extortion. The International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm is currently looking to open a preliminary investigation.
During the session the Riksdag voted on three motions proposing a ban on taxation of citizens resident in Sweden by Eritrea. It is clear a majority of the Riksdag was against the Eritrean government collecting taxes in this way. Members of Parliament and of the Parliamentary Committee on Justice said that if Swedish law did not currently forbid the practice, then the rules needed to be tightened. The Vice-Chair of the Committee on Justice, John Linander, said firmly that forced tax collection from Eritreans living abroad was not acceptable. “We are willing to take measures if current legislation can’t put a stop to this,” he added.
Meanwhile, Eritrea continues to hold Swedish-Eritrean journalist, Dawit Isaak, in detention without charge or trial as it has for the last ten years, most of the time incommunicado. After Eritrea’s independence, Dawit returned to Eritrea to co-found Setit, the country’s first independent newspaper. In 2001, it was closed down as part of a major clampdown which obliterated press freedom, suspended civil liberties, and sent scores of journalists to prison as well as detaining a number of senior ministers from the G 15, and other officials. Last October Dawit was awarded the 50th anniversary Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers but there has been no news on his whereabouts since 2005. His family has been barred from visiting and he has disappeared into the silence of the Eritrean prison system. Eritrea ranks last on the Reporters Without Borders “World Press Freedom Index.” In a controversial Swedish interview in 2009, President Isaias made it clear that he regarded Dawit Isaak’s status as a dual citizen of Sweden as of little consequence. He said there were no plans to respond to repeated Swedish requests to free him. “We will not have any trial and we will not free him,” he said. “We know how to handle his kind.”
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News and Views
An IGAD Ambassadors’ forum in Washington
The Ambassadors of the IGAD countries to the United States have decided to set up a joint consultative forum to extend their coordinated activity at various levels. The Ambassadors of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda have held a number of discussions on the need to form an IGAD Heads of Missions Group in Washington DC, and they took the decision to set up their joint consultative forum at a session held at the Chancery of the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington on February 22nd when Ambassador Girma Birru of Ethiopia took the initiative to coordinate the establishment of the forum.
The Ambassadors’ Group has discussed the need to coordinate each member country’s activities in line with the resolutions adopted by the parent organization, IGAD. They agreed to promote any common stand taken by IGAD at various fora and meetings. They also decided to conduct regular meetings on a quarterly basis and that the chairmanship and the venue should be decided on rotation. Ambassador Girma has been elected to chair the Consultative Forum for the next twelve months. The Embassy of the Republic of Djibouti will host the next meeting on May 22nd.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Girma, who is also accredited to Mexico, presented his credentials to the President of the United Mexican States, President Felipe Calderon, on February 24th. During the ceremony, President Calderon noted that Mexico appreciated Ethiopia’s extensive transformation efforts. He expressed his country’s readiness to provide support for the realization of the Growth and Transformation Plan and to further elevate diplomatic ties between two sisterly nations. Ambassador Girma praised the historic role Mexico has played during the era of the League of Nations by giving its strong support to Ethiopia and condemning the unprovoked Fascist Italian aggression against the country during the Second World War. The Ambassador re-iterated Ethiopia’s continued desire to enhance existing relations in the realm of trade and investment and raise them to a much higher level. He explained that Ethiopia was currently striving hard to overcome poverty and become a middle income country by 2020 through the realization of its current Growth and Transformation Plan.
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A Sub-regional Workshop of Human Rights Education in Addis Ababa
A “train-the-trainers” Sub-regional (East Africa) Workshop on Human Rights Education is being held here in Addis Ababa this week over four days. Jointly organized by the Center for Human Rights of Addis Ababa University, and the European Training and Research Center for Human Rights and Democracy of Austria, with the support of the Austrian Development Agency, the workshop has focused on good governance, the rule of law, rights of women and rights of the child, democracy, human rights education, and international criminal law. The aim was to enhance the capacity of human rights educators in East Africa by introducing contemporary thematic issues and methodological approaches including the integration of African perspectives in human rights education and introducing the latest edition of the Manual on Human Rights Education—Understanding Human Rights with its innovative methodology. The workshop will also ensure that participants benefit from each other’s experiences and are able to continue to network after the workshop ends.
The training is being conducted by experts from both Africa and Austria, and the workshop brought together 30 participants from East Africa, from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, who are involved in human rights education. They were selected on the basis of their own involvement in training in national human rights institutions, academia, the justice sector, in the courts and in the police, and in both governmental and non-governmental organizations. The choice of participants was gender-balanced. With a view to ensuring sustainability, the trainees will now be expected to become “multipliers” and the workshop is making available materials for further use. The trainees should be able to spread the message by providing basic and advanced human rights training across their own fields of activity.
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An IGAD workshop on water resource development
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) held a workshop on the Hydrological Cycle Observing System (HYCOS) project on Monday in Addis Ababa. This was to provide participating countries with a platform for discussion on the project, and attending the workshop were representatives from eight African countries: Ethiopia, Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda, as well as representatives from four national, regional and international institutions. The IGAD-HYCOS intergovernmental project, which was launched on November 24th last year in Nairobi, has the objective to promote sustainable and integrated water resources development and management in the IGAD region. It is a component of the Inland Water Resource Management Program and of the World Meteorological Organization. The financing agreement, for 4.8 million Euros, was signed in March 2010 between the European Commission and IGAD.
Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Ethiopia’s Water and Energy State Minister, Wondimu Tekle, said the project, which is aimed at providing countries with a hydrologic information system that will feed into a regional water information system, would help to achieve better provision of water and sanitation services and meet the socio-economic requirements of the people of the IGAD sub-region. It will also assist in developing national capacities for more efficient, cost effective and sustainable water management in the sub-region. Hydrology and Water Quality Director, Semunesh Golla, on her part said the project would be implemented in two phases- a preparatory and an implementation phase. The World Meteorological Organization is working to develop the two phases of the project in collaboration with IGAD.
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A workshop on “Blue Peace in the Nile”
A workshop on the Nile was held in Zurich, February 23rd-24th, organized by the Strategic Foresight Group, a Mumbai-based think tank and co-sponsored by the Swiss Agency for International Development and the Swiss Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland. The theme of the workshop was “Blue peace in the Nile”, aimed at bridging the gap between Nile riparian countries on the use of the Nile waters, looking for ways to resolve disputes over water in a manner that might avoid conflict and foster cooperation. It was attended by delegates from all the Nile riparian countries except for DR Congo and participants included parliamentarians, representatives of civil society organizations, government institutions and think tanks as well as representatives of the Swiss government. Participants underlined the need for continued dialogue and for the furtherance of cooperation as a win-win strategy. Delegates from upper riparian countries stressed the need for strengthening the Comprehensive Framework Agreement and called on the two lower riparian countries to sign the agreement. The Director General of the Swiss Agency for International Development, Martin Dahinden, in his remarks underlined that Switzerland, as a country with a wealth of experience in the issue of trans-boundary cooperation over water, would continue to play a key role in resolving water-related disputes. The president of the Strategic Foresight Group, Sundeep Waslekar, expressed the group’s keen interest in working with Africans, promising his organization would continue to be fully engaged with the riparian countries working for “Blue Peace in the Nile”. He emphasized his conviction that water should be a source of cooperation rather than conflict, pointing out that his organization had undertaken a similar project “Blue Peace in the Middle East”. He promised to use that experience in the furtherance of cooperation among the Nile riparian countries.
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Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
