This week, Eritrean president Issayas Afewerki paid a short visit to Ethiopia where he conferred with top government officials including president Sahlework Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The bilateral talks came as a surprise but at a crucial time in relations between the two countries that entered a new period warming up since the Ethio- Eritrean peace initiative that was launched last year. However the last few months saw another period of relative cooling down in relations between the two countries due to the outbreak of COVID-19 that shook the entire world to its core.
This week’s visit by the Eritrean president to Ethiopia could therefore be interpreted as a joint effort to pick up the pieces and transition from the freezing point to a kind of diplomatic thaw by adding momentum to the relations between the two countries. In this sense, the visit has come at the right time when the two countries are trying to cope with multiple challenges that are exacerbated by the corona virus pandemic with all its implications and impacts on the region, including on the prospects of economic cooperation.
All countries of the Horn region are now dealing in their own specific ways with the urgent and multifaceted challenges paused by the pandemic which is not only a health crisis but also a far-reaching and multifaceted emergency. The corona crisis is affecting countries of the Horn in various ways and with varying intensity but the bottom line is that this global crisis should be addressed collectively and that the economic and other negative fallouts need to be faced with more verve and determination.
Countries of the Horn need to work in unison in order to contain the spread of the virus which is slowly and inevitably reaching alarming levels. Whether present rates of infections in Horn of Africa countries show differences, all of them are struggling against a common enemy that is making life harder for hundreds of millions of people in the area. According to recent information, cross border movements of people and goods are impacting the rates of infections as well as the available logistics and strategies to fight them. Individually, countries of the Horn are not up to the task of stopping the spread of the virus single-handedly;but collectively they can coordinate their actions, identify their priorities and move faster to contain the spread f the virus before it causes more mayhem. Infection levels are expected to reach their peaks at different times in different countries of the Horn. In Ethiopia for instance, infections are expected to reach their peak sometime after May and might continue during the rainy and cold season in June, July and August.
Medical professionals around the world often warn the public about peak periods when infections reach their maximum levels and more and more people are affected and the struggle to stop the virus becomes more difficult until the infection curve starts to fall and eventually flatten. At present, Ethiopia has a relatively low infection level compared to other smaller countries in the region but this does not mean the situation will remain the same for a long time. Almost all countries started with slow or low level of infections but rapidly changed into outbreaks that engulfed tens of thousands of people in a short time.
For this and other related reasons, countries of the Horn have a narrowing window of opportunity to minimize the impacts of such outbreaks. They can for instance cooperate with the vital task of monitoring cross-border human movements, sharing information on the situation at critical checkpoints along their common borders and if possible, deploy health professionals and materials to diminish the negative impacts.
In this sense, countries of the Horn can learn from the mistakes other countries in Europe or elsewhere made in the early days of the pandemic when they failed to coordinate efforts and tried to manage the crisis single-handedly or in their specific ways resulting in panic and preventable human losses. Proactive and quality leadership are also critical in stemming the tide of infections.
Leadership in the regional context means collective management, good organization and better execution of the plans and programs against the pandemic. Poor as countries of the region are, they cannot rely on sophisticated technology or the latest medical equipments to do the job. They rather have at their disposal what we may call “the poor man’s alternative” of using limited resources and containment strategies rather wisely and in solidarity with one another. Some of the tried and tested ways of containing the spread of the virus have proved more efficient in this endeavor than the expensive medical gadgets that could not do wonders in this battle of wits between a vicious virus and limited human knowledge and resources.
The struggle against this global pandemic is not only about health and only health issues but also involves other dimensions such as diplomacy, economy, international relations and regional organization. All these aspects of relations in the region are not only intertwined and interdependent but are also impacting one another in unprecedented ways. Beside COVID-19, these countries also face the common and equally devastating threats of locus invasions and illnesses like yellow fever or malaria that are more destructive but less talked about simply because we lived with them for many decades or took them for granted.
Ethiopia is presently facing a potentially vicious cycle of locust invasions that come and go according to the seasons and the directions of wind across the region. This is something no country of the Horn can stay immune from as locusts destroy crops and prepare the ground for serious food shortages. Malaria is of course the number one killer disease in the region and international efforts always fall short of the challenges. Pandemics and food shortages are often described as the links in the same long chain of human sufferings in the region. They ran in a cycle and the only way to break it is to redouble international, regional and nationals efforts in a coordinated and aggressive ways.
Ethiopia and Eritrea share not only a common border but also the prospect of using Eritrean ports to load and unload Ethiopian goods in normal times as well as in times of crisis or health emergencies such as the ones the two countries are going through at present. This is basically what we may describe as the crux of economic cooperation as part of the normalization process in relations between the two sisterly countries. Now that they have resumed the talks the leaderships of the two countries need to move quickly and decisively in order not to be outpaced by the speed of the problems that are facing them.
This week’s visit by the Eritrean president should therefore revamp this vital aspect of the cooperation agreement. In case things go from bad to worse, Ethiopia has the opportunity to use Eritrean port and related facilities to move urgently needed cargo from the ports to the hinterland. Preparations for such eventualities should therefore be started in both countries right now in order to avoid possible chaos and panic when and if the most feared scenario materializes.
The struggle to contain and overcome not only the corona virus but also the other deadly diseases and threats to livelihoods in both countries involves a strong logistic infrastructure that can quickly and readily respond to the requirements of shipping of medical goods as well as ordinary supplies. The two countries need to move as one in order to pool available resources or prepare for the final showdown.
This week’s visit by Eritrean president Issayas Afewerki to Ethiopia is not business as usual. It can be seen as an emergency time visit and between leaders of two countries that have rediscovered their old ties and are determined to face the future in common whatever this may take. As such, similar contacts and consultations should be repeated by the other countries of the region that face a common future that may turn out to be difficult but can also prove extremely rewarding after the dust settles and things return to normal life. Not only grassroots mobilization within their respective societies but also mobilization from above, from the regional leaderships may be indispensable to achieve what may appear at this stage something akin to a miracle.
The Ethiopian Herald may 10/2020
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
