The trend in recent years and even months to talk more and more frequently and actively about the Global South as such, and about Africa in particular, may in some cases be seen as a fashionable, superficial fad, but it is not without a significant practical component. Even a cursory analysis of the dynamics of bilateral meetings and summits with an “African focus” is the most vivid illustration of the “turn to Africa”…

In recent months, the Horn of Africa has become one of the world’s most active sources of political news. No sooner have analysts discussed the reasons for the signing, possible ways of implementation and possible consequences of the Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland, than new stories have appeared on the agenda. In particular, we are talking about the agreement signed between Turkey and the Federal Government of Somalia on 22 February 2024. Formally, the Turkish side undertook only to provide…

A year ago, any talk of a hypothetical alliance between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Fano would have gone no further than greetings, but today the situation has changed. Once at the forefront of the anti-Tigray forces, Fano’s Amharic nationalist organisation has come under attack from its new ally, the Ethiopian government led by Abiy Ahmed, while its former antagonist, the TPLF, has managed to restore peace with the federal centre…

Unlike the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and the Fano group, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fell into the anti-government camp not as a force challenging year of lawlessness and discrimination by the federal government. On the contrary, the TPLF, which was created in the 1970s to fight the socialist Derg regime, managed over the years to transform from a tiny ethnic group into a powerful party that indirectly controlled the political system of Ethiopia for more than 20 years…

Ethiopia’s current political landscape is largely defined by the results of the “Oromo Revolution” – a political process that preceded the fall of the longstanding (1991-2018) hegemony of the and was initially seen as a harbinger of a soon-to-be landmark transformation in the country’s political life. After almost six years, however, it has become clear that such rosy expectations have been shattered by the harsh reality: the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed – the first prime minister in Ethiopia’s history…

At the end of January 2024, another representative of the Western world clearly demonstrated its interest in developing cooperation with the countries of the Global South: on Monday January 29 an Italy-Africa summit, organized by Italy, opened in Rome. Although this event is not comparable in scale to recent Russia-Africa or US-Africa summits, either in terms of both the number of participants or the importance of the depth of the issues involved, it would be a mistake to ignore it. Especially since, in addition to the leaders of countries that have traditionally maintained relations with Europe…

The number of significant political events across the African continent has increased dramatically recently: not even a month after the signing of the sensational Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland, another news story has already taken centre stage. Thus, on 28 January, the military Governments of three Sahel States – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – announced their decision to leave the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with immediate effect. It should be borne in mind that any political changes in the Sahel zone may be of fundamental importance for Russia’s interests…

Despite the fact that even large-scale political events in the global South, which do not directly affect the interests of the leading players, traditionally remain somewhere on the periphery of the attention of the media and the general public of the Western-centric world, the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland has nevertheless become one of the significant information events in January 2024. This agreement predictably caused outrage in the Somali federal government…

Transport corridors remain a major obstacle to the dynamic and integrated economic development of individual States and entire regional communities on the African continent, as the quality and quantity of roads and railways do not fully meet existing needs. Some of the factors contributing to the low level of transport infrastructure development in Africa compared to the global average include…

In summary, the previous article examined the factors behind the very possibility of the signing of the Ethiopia-Somaliland Memorandum of Understanding on 1 January 2024, under which Addis Ababa, at least on paper, gained long-awaited access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognition of its northeastern neighbour’s independence and, according to some reports, the transfer of control of part of Ethiopian Airlines…

The beginning of 2024 for the countries of the Horn of Africa was marked by an event that could not only significantly change the existing balance of power, but also cause another political crisis…

There is now an unequivocal scientific consensus that political, economic, social and cultural issues in Sub-Saharan Africa must be viewed through the prism of ethnicity. This hypothesis is supported by the multi-ethnicity characteristic of most of the states in the region and the rich empirical base of inter-ethnic conflicts and contradictions based on the study of East, Tropical and Southern Africa. Nevertheless, with regard to the territory of the former Western Sudan and, according to some data, some other areas of the African continent, it is appropriate to speak of a significant levelling…