Related news: Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean Security

On 7–8 February, SIPRI, in cooperation with India’s National Maritime Foundation and the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to India, organized a workshop in Delhi entitled ‘Securing the Maritime Commons: India, the European Union and Indian Ocean Maritime Security’. The workshop brought together senior military and civilian officials, as well as leading experts on maritime security from India and the EU.

The two-day workshop focused on sharing strategic perspectives on traditional and non-traditional maritime security challenges across the Indian Ocean region. It identified potential areas of cooperation on issues of anti-piracy, maritime crime and maritime domain awareness, as well as explored opportunities to strengthen regional and oceanic governance in the Indian Ocean.

Dr Neil Melvin, Senior Researcher at SIPRI on Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean security, was a co-organizer of the event and a speaker in several of the workshop sessions.

More information about the event can be found here.

SIPRI has expanded its research on security issues in the Horn of Africa by launching a new series of publications investigating major questions for the future security and stability of the region. Notably, it highlights the increasing importance of geopolitical, commercial and military competition as the driver of foreign military deployments to the region.

Read the reports here. 

The Horn of Africa is undergoing far-reaching changes in its external security environment. A wide variety of international security actors—from Europe, the United States, the Middle East, the Gulf and Asia—are currently operating in the region. As a result, the Horn of Africa has experienced a proliferation of foreign military bases and a build-up of naval forces. The foreign military presence in the region increasingly operates as part of much wider military networks—across the Middle East and the Gulf, and the Indian and Pacific oceans.

The growing role of external security actors in the Horn of Africa presents major challenges for existing African and Horn regional security structures, which are poorly adapted to the new external security politics of the region. It raises the prospect of proxy struggles, growing geopolitical tensions and a further extension of externally driven security agendas in the region.

The series of publications includes a SIPRI Background Paper that maps the growth of foreign military forces in and around the Horn of Africa over the past two decades; a SIPRI Insights paper that explores the factors driving foreign military deployments to the region; and a SIPRI Policy Brief that identifies priority areas for action to help the Horn countries in managing the new external security politics of the region.

Read more about SIPRI’s Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean Security research.

On 22–23 May, SIPRI, in cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Kenya Office (FES Kenya) and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), convened a two-day workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, to seek ways of better integrating the risks posed by climate change into peace and security processes in the Horn of Africa.

Participants in the workshop, which was held under the Chatham House Rule, represented a diverse group of policy, academic and civil society experts from different countries of the Horn of Africa, and discussed new ideas and regional cooperation opportunities on the issue of climate change and risk.

Horn of Africa Climate Security Dialogue

Climate change-related security risks have far-reaching implications for the way the Horn of Africa can manage peace and security in the future. Together with SIPRI's partners FES Kenya and PACJA, the goal of this workshop and other regional dialogues on climate security is to develop new ideas and identify relevant areas for incorporating the impacts of climate change into collective security mechanisms, in order to improve climate security in the Horn of Africa. Through a series of regional dialogues, a working group is able to facilitate an exchange between its members, as well as different stakeholders and experts—including political decision makers—with the objective of triggering new thinking about regional, continental, global and collective opportunities for action in order to address and mitigate climate-related security risks more holistically.

SIPRI’s work in the Horn of Africa

SIPRI's work in the Horn of Africa has previously looked at climate-related security risks and regional responses through the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Currently, SIPRI is conducting research on how climate change is impacting the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia.

SIPRI’s work in the region also looks at the interface between the fast-developing regional agendas of external emerging and traditional international security actors, and the evolving conflict dynamics within the Horn of Africa. Read more.