Foreign Ministry Conducts a Strategic Multi-Stakeholder Consultations
NEWS IN BRIEF
Ethiopia
President Taye Atske Selassie bid farewell to the outgoing Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Ethiopia, Kang Jung on Wednesday (August 26). The President expressed appreciation for his contribution to the longstanding Ethiopia-Korea relations.
The Ethiopian National Dialogue Conference was officially concluded on Saturday (August 22), with a closing ceremony held at the Addis International Convention Center. The ceremony marked the conclusion of a 46-day process that brought together Ethiopians from different parts of the country and the diaspora to deliberate on major political, social and national issues. (See article)
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a consultative forum on August 17 and 18. The consultative forum titled “Ethiopia and the interconnected geoeconomic trends” aims at leveraging Ethiopians’ intellectual capital to conceptualize contemporary international relations and deliberate on operationalizations in pursuit of Ethiopia’s national interests, attracting researchers from several think-tanks and universities. (See article)
State Minister Ambassador Hadera Abera met with Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdullah Hassan A. Alzahrani, at his office on Monday (August 24) to discuss further strengthening bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
On Wednesday (August 26), Ambassador Hadera received the newly appointed UAE Ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdalla Hassan Obaid Hassan AlShamsi. Ambassador Hadera underscored Ethiopia’s commitment to strengthening the longstanding partnership, with emphasis on trade, investment, and people-to-people relations, and encouraged increased UAE investment in priority sectors.
On the same day, Ambassador Hadera met with Kirsty McNeill, UK Minister of State for International Development, for an exchange on the longstanding Ethiopia–UK partnership.
The State Minister also met on Thursday (August 27), with UN Special Representative for South Sudan and Head of UNMISS Anita Kiki Gbeho. They exchanged views on the evolving situation in South Sudan and the broader region.
State Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Berhanu Tsegaye received the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand Sihasak Phuangketkeow upon his arrival at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport on Friday (August 28) for an official visit to Ethiopia.
Somalia
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met Kirsty McNeill, UK Minister of State for International Development, at Villa Somalia on Wednesday (August 26) to discuss opportunities to strengthen the UK-Somalia partnership.
Africa and the African Union
President Taye Atske Selassie, joined the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, at the 76th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa (RC76) in Addis Ababa on Tuesday (August 24). Minister of Health Mekdes Daba has been elected Chairperson of the 76th Session of WHO RC76.
Chairperson Youssouf on Wednesday (August 26) received the Executive Secretary of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Workneh Gebeyehu, at AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa for their regular consultations on regional peace, security and development.
Ethiopia’s Historic National Dialogue Concludes, Opening a New Chapter for Consensus and Reconciliation
The Ethiopian National Dialogue Conference was officially concluded on Saturday (August 22), with a closing ceremony held at the Addis International Convention Center. The ceremony marked the conclusion of a 46-day process that brought together Ethiopians from different parts of the country and the diaspora to deliberate on major political, social and national issues.
The closing ceremony was attended by President Taye Atske Selassie, former President Mulatu Teshome, senior federal government officials, regional leaders, members of the National Dialogue Commission, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Nigerian President and AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo, IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu, members of the diplomatic community and other invited guests.
Chief Commissioner of the National Dialogue Commission, Mesfin Araya, highlighted the scale and significance of the undertaking, noting that around 4,000 participants had remained together for 46 days and developed mutual understanding through the process.
President Taye Atske commended the participants for completing the 46-day deliberations and expressed appreciation to the National Dialogue Commission for its extensive efforts. He said participants had brought the experiences and perspectives of their respective communities into the national forum, deliberated and debated their differences, and produced recommendations reflecting shared national aspirations. The President described the process as a historic achievement that had given structured form to Ethiopia’s longstanding culture of dialogue as an instrument for addressing national challenges and advancing modern nation-building.
The President also emphasized the importance of conducting political discourse with civility and mutual respect. He stressed that the dialogue was not intended to provide a temporary political settlement but to chart a sustainable roadmap for Ethiopia’s growth, adding that its recommendations should be viewed as living ideas capable of developing across generations. He further underscored that the process demonstrated Ethiopians’ capacity to listen to and respect one another and expressed hope that its recommendations would contribute to the country’s continued progress and unity.
Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta congratulated the Ethiopian people and the National Dialogue Commission on the achievement. He commended the Commission for confronting difficult national questions, listening to thousands of voices and bringing diverse experiences together in pursuit of national consensus. He stressed that the conclusion of the conference should be viewed as the beginning of a broader journey, calling for inclusive implementation of the recommendations and emphasizing that Ethiopia’s diversity should serve as a foundation for unity rather than division. He also underscored the importance of Ethiopia’s peace and stability to the wider region.
Former Nigerian President and AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, congratulated the Prime Minister and the Commission on the conclusion of the dialogue. He emphasized that national dialogue is essential to promoting peace, security and stability, which are vital for national development and the wellbeing of citizens. He described the 46-day process involving 4,000 participants as a historic undertaking that could serve as an example for Africa.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Berhanu Tsegaye, reflecting on the conclusion of the conference, described the peaceful conclusion of the National Dialogue as an important milestone in Ethiopia’s pursuit of peace and national consensus. He stressed that the conclusion marks the beginning of a culture in which peaceful engagement becomes a preferred means of addressing differences, adding that Ethiopia’s experience could offer hope to Africa and the wider world.
The National Dialogue was convened as an inclusive platform to address differences through dialogue rather than confrontation, following a four-year, citizen-driven preparatory process involving nationwide consultations, participant selection, agenda development and public awareness activities. Its agenda covered state-building, identity and history, federalism, religious affairs, rule of law and human rights, socio-economic development, anti-corruption, peacebuilding and reconciliation.
The conclusion of the National Dialogue marks both an achievement and the beginning of a new phase of national engagement. Its recommendations serve as roadmaps for Ethiopia’s political and national development, raising hopes that the emphasis on dialogue, inclusion, reconciliation and peaceful political engagement will contribute to a more peaceful and cohesive Ethiopia while offering valuable lessons for Africa and beyond.
Foreign Ministry Conducts a Strategic Multi-Stakeholder Consultations
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a consultative forum on August 17 and 18. The consultative forum titled “Ethiopia and the interconnected geoeconomic trends” aims at leveraging Ethiopians’ intellectual capital to conceptualize contemporary international relations and deliberate on operationalizations in pursuit of Ethiopia’s national interests, attracting researchers from several think-tanks and universities.
The core foundation, captured by Ambassador Hadera Abera’s opening speech at the consultative forum, has four pillars, often referred to as Ethiopia’s 4As, first outlined by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in his June 2025 televised address. Accordingly, the reformed foreign relations approach has become active in its pursuit of proactive and independent engagement in global relations; sought alternatives through the establishment of non-aligned and diverse diplomatic partnerships; become adaptive, displaying enhanced flexibility and non-ideological situational awareness; and graduated to becoming Agenda-Setter by enhancing the ability to move from passive execution of global mandates toward embracing and assuming leadership roles in the delivery of a new international order.
The overall objective of such a transformative foreign policy agenda is to enable Ethiopia to seize emerging opportunities, protecting its national interests from the uncontrolled competition of external actors, who are seeking to carve out spheres of influence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea at Ethiopia’s costs.
In this forum, invited participants presented their outlook on a number of regional and global issues, which have significant influence on Ethiopia’s foreign relations and regional stability. The consultation highlights the interlinkages between several localized and regional conflicts and the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea regions become unrestricted playgrounds for middle and great powers, whose presence, withdrawal, and maneuvers relegate regional peace and stability as a secondary objective. In this regard, the consultation underscored that Ethiopia’s peace, stability, and prosperity is closely linked with its proactive foreign policy.
The consultative forum also gathered senior experts from respective government institutions, such as the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Labor and Skills, the Ethiopian Investment Commission, and Ethiopian Investment Holdings. The main goal of the first consultation on “Ethiopia and the interconnected geoeconomic trends” was to inform strategy based on the data and strategic foresights from across the economic apparatus of the Ethiopian republic.
The consultation underlined the centrality of Ethiopia’s Homegrown Economic Reform, a transparent, market-oriented economic reform, which resulted in elevating Ethiopia to one of the biggest economies in Africa, maintaining a double-digit growth rate. The reform has expanded the economy, managed inflation, ascertained food sovereignty, boosted industrial capacity, enhanced energy security, grown export earnings, created jobs, revitalized tourism, and structurally reformed the public service sector, boosting Ethiopia’s regional and global standings, which partly explain or explained by the reemergence of Addis Ababa as a global diplomatic hub. In this regard, the consultation underscored that Ethiopia’s economic trajectory, given the wide range of geoeconomic trends discussed, can only be sustained by a proactive foreign policy.
The deliberations stressed that the post-Cold War international order, once shaped by established normative frameworks, has in recent years come under increasing strain, contributing to greater fragmentation in international governance. The fracture has resulted, as much as it is influenced, in uncontrolled geopolitical competition where the weakening of international cooperation creates new risks — and new opportunities — for countries ready to act on them. For Ethiopia, which sits at a strategic crossroads for global trade and security, adhering to the business as usual paradigm is a strategic liability.
Gedion Timothewos, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister in his article published in June 2025, argued that the current global landscape is defined by fragmentation. The rise of extremist political parties, protectionist economic policies, and the unpredictable behavior of middle powers continue to undermine international cooperation, thereby challenging global peace and prosperity. The complexity also results in the proliferation of rivalries, alliances, and initiatives, undermining and sometimes fracturing regional security architectures. A typical manifestation being the transformation of localized conflicts into regional crises, inviting and mainstreaming external provocation.
As Ethiopia navigates this shift from rules-based diplomacy to raw power politics, the necessity for a strategic foresight has become the cornerstone of its diplomacy. Thus, reforming its foreign service to involve more voices in decision-making has been one demonstration of Ethiopia’s foreign policy architectural reform. The structural foundation of the diplomatic reform is the same adaptive framework outlined above, designed to help the country seize emerging opportunities while, at the same time, withstand the unpredictable behavior of global actors in an increasingly fractured world.
Active, adaptive, alternative-seeking, and proactive statecraft, all panels agree, will ascertain Ethiopia’s trajectory as an architect of geopolitical and geoeconomic reality in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea regions, a force of stability, and a responsible leader in Africa. The number of actionable recommendations that emanate from the consultations that will be integrated into Ethiopia’s strategic document. The strategic consultations on integrative trend analysis demonstrates that Ethiopian diplomacy has moved toward a proactive, participatory approach designed to help navigate steadily in the future of interconnected unpredictability.
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