Regional Integration in the Horn of Africa: Is Prime Minister Abiy’s Initiative an Institution ahead of its Time?
The Horn of Africa (HoA) region has been riddled with inter-state armed conflict, poverty, drought, extremism and famine. Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes have ruled much of the region and contributed to the broken political and social system in the region. Decades of underdevelopment coupled with social disparity and divisions along ethnic, religious, tribal, cultural and political lines have contributed to the conflicts and social upheavals within the region. The Horn of Africa had not smelt any signs of integration until of recent in April 2018 when Mr.Abiy Ahmed was named Prime Minister of Ethiopia. It would be overly simplistic to attribute the concept of horn of Africa regional integration only to the inspiration of Mr Abiy Ahmed. For some time, this idea of regional integration was floated in a number of local and international forums as the springboard to construct viable polity to improve security and trade in the region.