The Horn of Africa: Its strategic importance for Europe, the Gulf States and beyond

In this seminar, Alexander Rondos will address the challenges facing the region and the Horn’s strategic importance Europe, the Gulf states and other actors. A key question is how these challenges can be converted into a joint effort that will allow for the integration of the Horn of Africa into a platform of security and economic cooperation?

The diversity of geography, history, population, politics, and culture has made the Horn of Africa prone to conflict within its societies and between its countries. And it is those differences that have allowed outsiders to play proxy politics with the region.

The core of this region, comprising the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia—with Kenya and Uganda very closely associated—has attracted once again in its history the attention of greater powers.

Several issues are affecting the Horn of Africa today: Terrorism, realignment of loyalties because of confrontation with the Muslim world, the security of trade through the Red Sea and the global migration crisis, to mention some. In geopolitical terms, the Horn is the fragile neighborhood of Europe’s very fractured southern neighborhood.