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Abiy Ahmed must view the Nobel as a call to end inter-ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award this year’s Peace Prize to Abiy Ahmed, the Prime
Minister of Ethiopia, is both a recognition of his efforts for peace in East Africa and a reminder of the
challenges ahead for him. Mr. Abiy, who became Prime Minister in April 2018 after his predecessor
Hailemariam Desalegn resigned amid a political crisis and social unrest, has taken steps to politically
stabilise the country and establish peace on its borders. The committee recognised in particular his
“decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea”. Eritrea, which got
independence from Ethiopia in 1991, has fought a disastrous border war during 1998-2000 with its big
neighbour. It split thousands of families and killed about 80,000 people. In Eritrea, the dictatorship used
the prolonged border conflict as a convenient excuse for conscription and repression of its critics, which
led to a mass refugee outflow. Mr. Abiy, immediately after assuming office, took steps to resume the
stalled peace process. He led Ethiopia’s first state visit to Eritrea and met its President, Isaias Afwerki.
Within days both countries declared the end of the border war.

Mr. Abiy, 43, had also initiated reforms at home, such as lifting the ban on opposition political parties,
releasing political prisoners and jailed journalists and removing media curbs. Half of his Cabinet
members are women and his government has welcomed the dissidents who were living in exile to
return. More important, Mr. Abiy, himself hailing from the Oromo ethnic group, persuaded the Oromo
Liberation Front to join a wide-ranging peace process with the government. But his biggest challenge is
to calm ethnic tensions in his conflict-ridden country. Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic federation ruled by the
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front with a tight grip. Mr. Abiy has loosened this grip and
called for a pan-Ethiopian identity and a freer economy and polity. But his reform agenda was
challenged by ethno-nationalists both within and outside his party. His government remained a
spectator when ethnic violence was unleashed in several parts of the country over the past year, and
sub-nationalisms emerged stronger. The Oromia and Amhara regions remain tense. Ethnic Gedeos and
Gujis are in conflict in the south. Earlier this year, at least 5,22,000 Ethiopians were displaced by ethnic
conflicts. With the country set to go to elections next year, many fear that violence could escalate. Mr.
Abiy has to arrest this slide of Ethiopia into an inter-ethnic civil war. Being a Nobel peace prize winner,
he should come up with a national action plan to end violence, ease ethnic tensions and resettle the
thousands displaced by the violence. That should be as important for him as ending the war with Eritrea.

Modi and Xi have not allowed recent disagreements to cloud their meeting

Just ahead of the Chennai informal summit between China’s President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, senior officials said the purpose of the second meeting of its kind, following the Wuhan
summit, was for the leaders to show that they are “getting down to business”. Cutting through much of
the pomp and show at Mamallapuram, the leaders ensured just that — by putting “business” first. In a
decision taken after their talks, the leaders established a “High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue
mechanism” between the Finance Ministers with the three-pronged objective of enhancing trade
volumes, bridging the massive bilateral trade deficit, and increasing mutual investment in sectors agreed
upon. If the mechanism works, it will not only succeed in taking away one of the major irritants in ties
but also allow influential stakeholders in the business communities of both countries to promote ties as
well as help New Delhi and Beijing work more closely on the multilateral stage. A key test of the
bonhomie and trust-building will be seen towards the month-end when the two leaders attend the
ASEAN-led summit in Bangkok that is due to announce the conclusion of the 16-nation free trade
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement. India has been reluctant to join it thus far,
mostly because of concerns over China’s predatory trade policies. Among the key takeaways from the
Chennai summit, which added the “Chennai Connect” to the “Wuhan Spirit”, was the decision to mark
the 70th anniversary, in 2020, of the establishment of India-China relations. The others were to nudge
the Special Representatives on the boundary issues to meet soon to add more confidence building
measures, to cooperate on fighting terror, and to continue the “informal summit” series, with Mr. Modi
attending the next meeting in China next year.

Above all, the leaders decided, as they had in Wuhan, that they would “prudently manage” differences
and not allow “differences to become disputes” or as Mr. Xi put it, “dilute cooperation”. This is easier
said than done as many of the bilateral disputes appear to have an external factor. India often sees
China through the prism of its ties with Pakistan, while China looks constantly for an American role in
Indian actions. Both the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the U.S.-India joint Indo-Pacific vision
have further derailed bilateral trust. It is thus necessary to remove the worry of “third parties” from the
room if New Delhi and Beijing are to move beyond laying the foundations of engagement and building
atmospherics to actually resolving the serious issues they have in territorial, economic and strategic
areas. Only when they see each other as independent and autonomous decision-makers will the leaders
realise their vision of an Asian century where the “elephant and dragon” learn to dance.

Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer also share the Nobel for their experimental approach to alleviating
global poverty

The 2019 Nobel Prize for economics goes to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “for their
experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
announced on Monday.

The research conducted by the 2019 Economic Sciences Laureates has considerably improved our ability
to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed
development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research.

Over 700 million people still subsist on extremely low incomes. Every year, five million children still die
before their fifth birthday, often from diseases that could be prevented or cured with relatively cheap
and simple treatments.

This year’s Laureates have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways
to fight global poverty. It divides this issue into smaller, more manageable lines of enquiry like, for
example, formulating the most effective interventions for improving child health, said a statement from
the Nobel Committee.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Kremer and his colleagues demonstrated how powerful an experiment-based
approach can be by using field experiments to test a range of interventions that could improve school
results in western Kenya.

Mr. Banerjee and Ms. Duflo, often with Mr. Kremer, soon performed similar studies of other issues and
in other countries, including India. Their experimental research methods now entirely dominate
development economics.

The 2019 Economic Sciences Laureates’ research findings have dramatically improved our ability to fight
poverty in practice. As a result of one of their studies, more than five million Indian children have
benefitted from programmes of remedial tutoring in schools, the statement said.

The prize, officially known as the ‘Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences In Memory Of Alfred
Nobel’, wasn’t created by the prize founder, but it is considered to be part of the Nobel stable of
awards.

The prize was created by Riksbanken, the Swedish central bank, in 1968, and the first winner was
selected a year later. So far, 81 Nobel laureates in economic sciences have been awarded.

Along with the glory comes a 9-million-kronor ($918,000) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma.

Last week, six Nobel prizes were awarded, for medicine, physics, chemistry, two literature awards, and
the coveted Peace Prize.

All awardees but the Peace Prize–winner will receive their awards on December 10, the anniversary of
Nobel’s death in 1896 in Stockholm. The winner of the Peace Prize receives the award in Oslo, Norway.

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