OPENING REMARKS BY THE IGAD EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, IGAD-GERMAN CONSULTATIONS ON DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

OPENING REMARKS
IGAD EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
IGAD-GERMAN CONSULTATIONS ON DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION 9th October 2025

• Your Excellency, Dr. Heike Fuller, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Djibouti,
• Julia Hannig, Head of the East Africa Division, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development,
• Distinguished representatives of KfW and GIZ,
• My esteemed IGAD colleagues,
• Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning.

1. Yesterday, as we celebrated together the Day of German Unity, I was reminded of something our elders in the Horn say: “Haruurri tokko qoraan hin cabne”; a single root cannot break the stone, but many roots together can split mountains.

2. Your unity thirty-five years ago was precisely such a moment when roots intertwined to move what seemed immovable. That same year, 1990, just four years after IGAD’s establishment in 1986, Germany became our first bilateral development partner. We are, in the truest sense, age-mates in this journey of building institutions that serve peace and prosperity.
3. For Thirty-seven years IGAD and Germany have stood together. Nearly 135 million Euros committed since 2021 alone. More than fifteen major programmes touching every corner and Member State in our region, from the Moyale cross-border office where Kenyan and Ethiopian peace committees now sit together, to the IGAD climate prediction system that give our pastoralists advance warning of drought.

4. These commitments represent a profound partnership that has weathered political upheaval and instability, droughts and displacement, pandemics and political transitions, yet emerged stronger with each challenge.
5. But let me speak plainly about the world we inhabit today. As we sit here in Djibouti, Sudan continues to burn in what has become one of the century’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Over eighteen million people face acute hunger. Ten million are displaced internally, over four million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and a large part of our eastern flank along the Red Sea further destabilized.
6. South Sudan also teeters on the edge once more, with only 43% of unified forces deployed and intercommunal violence claiming twelve hundred lives in just the first quarter of this year. Somalia prepares for elections that could either consolidate democracy or fracture the state. The Red Sea, that ancient artery of global commerce, has seen container traffic drop by 30% as Houthi attacks force the world’s shipping to reroute around Africa at costs measured in billions.
7. Yet beyond our immediate region, the tremors multiply. The war in Ukraine continues to distort global food and energy markets, hitting our people hardest. Climate change no longer announces itself through scientific projections but through the lived reality of our communities: 4 consecutive failed rainy seasons that pushed 9.8 million of our brothers and sisters into crisis, followed by floods so severe they displaced another eight hundred and fifty thousand. Meanwhile, the very multilateral architecture established after 1945 to prevent such cascading crises strains under the weight of great power competition and rising unilateralism.
8. This is precisely why Germany’s partnership with IGAD matters more today than ever before. Because you understand what others sometimes forget: that migration cannot be managed by barriers and walls, that climate change respects no borders, that pandemics require regional surveillance systems, that food security demands cross-border pastoral mobility, and that peace in Khartoum affects security in Berlin.
9. The 22.5 million euros you committed in 2023 for drought resilience, the Regional Migration Fund supporting four cross-border sites, the MoDiaC programme launched just last month to address climate-induced mobility, and the SIMPI framework harmonizing migration policies across eight sovereign states. These undertakings represent something revolutionary; they represent the recognition that sovereignty in the twenty-first century is not diminished but enhanced through regional cooperation.
10. Germany’s BMZ 2030 strategy speaks of creating regional value- added and adhering to the principle of subsidiarity. IGAD embodies precisely this vision. When your support enabled us to establish the Moyale cross-border facilitation office, we chose not to create another bureaucracy. Instead, we created space where local peace committees, migration networks, and civil society organizations now coordinate responses to challenges no single nation could address alone.
11. Yet I must also be frank about our shared challenges. The 8% cut to BMZ’s budget, that 910-million-euro reduction reported in the media last month, reverberates here. We understand fiscal pressures. We understand domestic political realities. But we also know this: every 1 euro invested in prevention saves 10 euros we shall be forced to spend in crisis response.
12. Our shared experience working together as KfW and ICPAC on the Regional Disaster Resilience Fund highlighted the importance of empowering, capacitating and working through regional and local institutions to develop climate risk transfer mechanisms tailored to pastoral communities who have managed uncertainty for millennia but now face unprecedented climate volatility.
13. Similarly, the restructuring of the Regional Migration Fund earlier this year, as demanding as those negotiations were, demonstrated that we can adapt, reform, and meet the standards required for effective partnership.
14. In this regard, IGAD welcomes Germany’s constructive engagement and our shared commitment to solution-oriented dialogue. Together, we have reaffirmed a fundamental principle: multilateral solutions delivered through regional institutions offer not only the most cost-effective approach, but also the most sustainable and equitable path forward for our shared challenges.
15. This partnership approach yields benefits that extend far beyond our region. Every cross-border development project we implement in the borderlands directly addresses the root causes of irregular migration before they escalate into crises at Europe’s borders. Every early warning system we strengthen together prevents humanitarian disasters rather than merely responding to them, reducing both human suffering and the substantial costs of emergency appeals.
16. In this way, our collaborative investment in regional resilience today translates into reduced migration pressures and humanitarian needs tomorrow. This goes beyond development cooperation; it is strategic foresight that serves the interests of both our regions while upholding the dignity and agency of the communities we serve.
17. Looking ahead, I see five areas where our partnership must deepen. First, climate resilience and the loss and damage agenda ahead of COP30 in Belém. The IGAD region contributes less than 1% to global emissions yet suffers disproportionately. We need Germany’s voice ensuring that the climate-change mitigation, adaptation and resilience mechanisms deliver for pastoral communities, not just for middle-income nations.
18. Over the past twenty-five years, IGAD has led the regional resilience and development agenda in borderland areas through sustained interventions, principally under the umbrella of the IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSSI).
19. These efforts have yielded measurable results, with borderlands development gaining significant prominence in international policy discussions and attracting substantial support through targeted programs and initiatives. Notable among these is the Horn of Africa Initiative, in which Germany serves as a critical partner. To build on this momentum and deliver lasting impact, continued engagement and expanded support from Germany remains essential.
20. Second, supporting IGAD’s mediation in Sudan and Ethiopia-Eritrea tensions. Your diplomatic backing at the UN Security Council and EU Council amplifies our legitimacy. Third, safeguarding migration programmes despite budget pressures, because the alternative and unmanaged displacement, human trafficking, and border conflicts costs far more.
21. Fourth, human and animal health, with a focus on pandemic preparedness, building on the surveillance systems we developed during COVID-19 to create genuine One Health for human lives and livestock capacity across our region. Fifth and finally, institutional strengthening through the EU Pillar Assessment process, which will enable more flexible, effective aid management.
22. There is an old Somali proverb: “Nin walaalihiis raacay, run buu raacay” – he who walks with his brothers walks in the truth. Germany has walked with us for 37 years, through seasons of crisis and moments of hope. You were there when the desert locusts invaded. You were there when COVID-19 struck. You were there when drought threatened millions with starvation. You have been there not as a donor dictating terms, but as a partner sharing risks and responsibilities.
23. As I conclude, I want to acknowledge what yesterday’s celebration truly represented. German Unity was not inevitable. It required courage, vision, and the belief that cooperation could transcend division. That walls could fall. That separated peoples could reunify. That institutions could be reformed to serve human dignity.
24. These same principles animate our work together today. When we invest in cross-border pastoral mobility, we tear down invisible walls that divide communities. When we harmonize qualification frameworks, we enable human potential to transcend arbitrary borders. When we build regional institutions capable of crisis response, we demonstrate that sovereignty pooled is sovereignty strengthened.
25. The challenges before us are formidable. Sudan’s crisis could destabilize the entire region. Climate change threatens the livelihoods of ninety million pastoralists. Youth unemployment fuels recruitment into extremist groups. But we have faced existential threats before and prevailed, not through isolation but through cooperation, not through unilateralism but through multilateralism, not by building walls but by building bridges.
26. Germany’s partnership with IGAD is more than development cooperation. It is a wager on our collective future: that regional institutions can deliver peace and prosperity, that multilateral solutions can address transnational challenges, that investing in prevention costs less than managing crises, and that human dignity transcends borders.
27. Let us emerge from today’s dialogue with renewed commitment, concrete pledges, and shared conviction that the path forward runs not through each nation standing alone, but through all of us standing together. Because in the end, we are all roots breaking stone, and only together can we split mountains.

Vielen Dank. Asante sana. Thank you very much.