Current efforts to draft the global compacts on refugees and migrants offer a unique opportunity for Africa to raise its concerns. The continent will make the most of it, predicts Mehari Taddele Maru. Dr Mehari Taddele Maru is a Robert Schuman Fellow, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute, specializing in migration and humanitarian issues, law ...

Since February 2011, Abyei and South Kordofan, oil rich disputed border areas of South Sudan and Sudan, witnessed an intensive military clash between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) forces and the military of the Government of Sudan (GoS).  This reached a tipping point when the GoS forces took control of the town of Abyei ...

This year, IPSS will celebrate its 10th anniversary. This marks a high point of achievement for Addis Ababa University, IPSS and its partners during this eventful inaugural decade. Though conceived in 2004 in the AAU Reform Action Plan, IPSS was born three years later in 2007.[1] The Institute was designed “to bridge the gap between the ...

A provisional court order was issued on Sunday to prevent Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir from leaving South Africa where he had been attending the African Union (AU) summit. This provision catapulted South Africa into the heat of the international news media’s spotlight. Regardless of the effectiveness of this court order, the situation entwines South Africa, the AU, ...

Marking the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development, the African Union Summit is due to be held from 21- 31 January 2014 with the theme, “2014 Year of Agriculture and Food Security”. The theme of the summit will be overshadowed by other current and emerging peace and security crises. Recently, South ...

After a year of the North African uprisings that took every body by surprise, it is time to undertake a ‘reality check’ in terms of what we believe the causes to be, the anticipated consequences, and what the future holds for the countries affected and the remaining African continent. This paper examines the events in ...

The African Union (AU) High-Level ad hoc committee on Libya in its 14 September 2011 meeting, held in Pretoria, South Africa, reviewed the situation in Libya. The Communiqué of the ad hoc committee indicates the continuous communication between the AU Commission and the National Transitional Council (NTC). The ad hoc committee has expressed its satisfaction ...

During its 291st Meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council, the African Union (AU) failed to officially recognise the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya.  It indicated that it would grant recognition only when an ‘all-inclusive transitional government’ is established in Libya. For this reason, the former Libyan representatives to the AU, who are ...

The IGAD region, constituting Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, currently hosts 4.6 million IDPs and 1.8 million refugees, while also producing 1.9 million refugees. In relative terms, the region hosts 12 percent and produces 13 percent of global refugees. In 2011, the EU received 327,000 migrants. Some 81, 000 of ...

This report reviews the legal framework regulating civil society organizations (CSOs) in ten countries of the greater Horn of Africa (HoA) (for the purposes of this report, the greater HoA is made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda) evaluating them against existing international norms and national constitutional ...