INTERNATIONAL IDEA: 'The Impact of the COVID19 Crisis on Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law in the Horn of Africa' - 25 June 2020, 14.00-14.45 EAT

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The COVID19 pandemic has exasperated the fragile socio-economic situation in the Horn of Africa and has compounded existing and/or created new challenges to democratisation in the region. It has also arrived at a time when four of the six countries in the region are in a protracted security and political transition process. Somalia and South Sudan remain in a state of ‘permanent’ transition, and Ethiopia and Sudan, the regions biggest, amid a generational window of opportunity to bury the hatches of authoritarianism and securitization of politics. Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the creation, sustenance and nurturing of an environment for building stable frameworks for constitutionalism and the rule of law in this “Region in Transition”, both in the short and long term, is therefore critical.

While there have been some efforts to understand and plan against the impacts of COVID-19, they have been isolated and lacked a comprehensive approach. Against this backdrop, International IDEA is organizing, in partnership with the Department for Political Affairs of the African Union Commission, a webinar around the theme: “The Impact of the COVID19 Crisis on Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law in the Horn of Africa.”