OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Since the rise of Abiy Ahmed to the apex of Ethiopia’s government, Ethiopia has been engulfed in a whirlwind of changes. This panel intends to assess the political landscape, the economic trajectory and the regional dynamics in the lead up to the national elections slated for August of this year. This will be a competitively contested election with the registration of multiple new parties and the the disintegration of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the ruling coalition that led Ethiopian between 1991 and 2019. As ethnic tensions continue to surge and political actors continue to instrumentals their ethnic constituencies, occasional clashes along regional borders and deaths on university campuses have become a regular sight. At the same time, the new Prosperity Party (PP) has embarked on a privatisation-driven, IMF-backed economic reform programme, which raises questions about the future of Ethiopia’s developmental state project. In addition to these domestic issues, Ethiopia’s relations to its neighbours has been recalibrated, bringing Eritrea into the fold, shifting alliances in Somalia, while at the same time having to navigate complex and intricate relations to the West, China and the Gulf. At this time of economic and political liberalisation, Ethiopia is at crossroads. What can we expect? What are the known unknowns? And where do the biggest risks lie?