BY GIRMACHEW GASHAW
Over the reform periods, there has been a novel shift in Ethiopia’s foreign policy. From giving due attention to neighboring countries to placing citizens at the center of diplomacy, Ethiopia’s foreign policy is going through a reform too. In fact, citizen diplomacy has become the order of the day as globalization has taken its hold.
Citizen diplomacy in the political concept is about engaging average citizens as representatives of a country or causes either inadvertently or by design. In other ways, citizen-centered diplomacy also seeks to use the potentials of citizens abroad in bring investment and knowledge as well as finance.
The existing foreign policy, besides its contribution and strong sides, draws criticism from experts for failing to take new happening and turn of events into consideration.
Typical examples they frequently raised against the policy was that it does not recognize the newest African country, South Sudan. The policy is also not informed about the latest Ethio-Eritrean rapprochements.
Citizen diplomacy may be an ideal tool of statecraft particularly when two countries do not formally recognize each other’s governments. It does not have to be direct negotiations between two parties, but can take the form of: scientific exchanges, cultural exchanges, and international athletic events, as some documents stated.
Citizen diplomats can be students, teachers, athletes, artists, business people, humanitarians, adventurers or tourists. They are motivated by a responsibility to engage with the rest of the world in a meaningful, mutually beneficial dialogue.
Being cost effectives and simple and natural, citizen diplomacy is more important to countries like Ethiopia. This proves more impetrative for a country once very much known for its poverty, drought and other challenges.
In this regard, a foreign relations policy document which is in its draft stage has attached increasing attention to citizen-centered diplomacy, some professionals argue. It as well recognizes Ethiopians living overseas as part and parcel of the national foreign relations. The existing Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy has paid scant attention to Ethiopians and descendants of Ethiopians’ living overseas, critics say.
But the all-round contribution of the community living oversees to the country has grown by leaps and bounds, many argue. By doing so, the new foreign policy envisages to making the citizens and foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin key participants in areas like investment, trade, tourism, education, science as well as technology transfer.
Meanwhile, politicians, diplomats, and scholars have been scrutinizing the draft foreign policy document, also aimed at better supporting Ethiopia for catching up with current regional, continental and global developments while properly positioning the country to respond properly to global dynamism.
As to Prof. Kassahun Berhanu, a Political Science and International Relation scholar from Addis Ababa University, the existing policy goes as far as touching upon particular issues. To him, the policy’s details about relations of Ethiopia with each and every country are “unnecessarily”. “Public policy document should not be designed in that way.”
Details as such are relevant to guide the operations of foreign affairs and they are solely manuals to the enforcement body, he argues. The existing policy discusses Ethiopia’s relations with Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt. Other gaps could be after two decades of statelessness, Somalia is now in a relatively stable condition, he said, commenting that the current policy does not take this into consideration. Right-wing nationalists as well are coming to public office internationally. The new policy should take these and other factors into consideration, he adds.
More importantly, the affairs of Ethiopians living overseas and Ethiopian descendants of foreign nationals ought to properly be considered in the new policy, according to him.
Ethiopia needs to effectively make use of citizen diplomacy to make its side of the story heard and harness the benefits in the negotiation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and Nile waters talk.
Endale Nigusse, Diplomacy and International Relations Lecturer at Civil Service University told The Ethiopian Herald that ever since the establishment of the League of Nations, diplomacy has been transferred from bilateral to that of multilateral one.
“Here, government organizations, NGOs as well as individual citizens participate in diplomacy. Then public diplomacy comes. Particularly, after the end of the cold war, public diplomacy was widely used,” he said.
As to the lecturer, in public diplomacy, all citizens are considered owners of a national issue. As the world’s politics is vast and dynamic, the government alone could not be effective in handling diplomacy.
Before the reform, Ethiopian diplomacy focused only on investment, Endale went on to say. “In addition, as it was established on a network, the diplomacy was sick. It did not represent the country and its citizens as it used to voice the voice of the ruling party.”
Since the start of the reform, the major change in the diplomatic sphere is that it becomes citizen-centered. Now it is the citizens who are the ambassadors of their country. “If each and every citizen does not actively take part in the diplomatic life, it would be impossible for the country to get rid of poverty and backwardness,” Endale said.
During GERD’s negotiation, Egypt has been trying to make Ethiopia appear bad by portraying as if all its intentions are meant to monopolize the Nile waters. “Egyptians went as far as claiming that they are the sources of the Nile and they have been making a lot of propaganda to shape the mentality of their people.”
This, as to Endale, is the result of lack of strong tradition of public diplomacy on the Ethiopian side in the past. But since recent times, things have started to change.
Despite the differences in ideology, the majority of Ethiopians at home and aboard stood together in harmony when it comes to the issue of GERD. This shows that Ethiopians could play an important role in public diplomacy when it comes to key issues of national interest.
Investors, Ethiopian lovers and citizens are now acting in the front line to undertake effective public diplomacy.
Had the country adopted a better diplomatic approach earlier, it would have been able to convince its neighbors the fact that it doesn’t have any intention to harm their interests by constructing GERD.
Citing the Nobel award, green legacy, the contribution of the country to African countries in the fight against COVID-19 and other good deeds, he said, there is a lot of room for citizens to engage in effective public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy will have a huge impact on regional issues considering the fact that Ethiopians share a lot of cultural and linguistic similarities with their neighbours. Further, as Ethiopia has a large number of populations overseas, the Diaspora could do a lot in the public diplomacy podium, he underlined.
Sultan Kassim, a law lecturer at Haromaya University said what differs citizen diplomacy from formal diplomacy is that ordinary citizens are active participants in the former. “Citizens play a key role in building the image of their country and protecting the country’s interests.’’
During GERD’s negotiations, besides promoting Ethiopia’s stance, Ethiopians could play a constructive role through public diplomacy by presenting the fact that Ethiopia does not have any intention of harming the interests of lower riparian countries by constructing the Dam and creating trust among the peoples of the basin.“Public diplomacy could play a key role in clearing various misconceptions.”
Compared with the experiences of other countries, citizen diplomacy has not been properly utilized in Ethiopia and as GERD negotiations clearly showed it is time to change this fact. “In doing so, we have to be able to plan citizen diplomacy with a purpose in mind.”
It is high time to rebranding Ethiopia’s image globally and re-evaluates most application of importantly the ace of public diplomacy efforts and Diaspora mobilization for image building of Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Herald January 30/2021
