Event

Fireside Chat with Dr Annette Weber, European Special Representative for the Horn of Africa

Date
24 Feb 2025
Time
17:00 UK time
Speakers
Dr Annette Weber
Where
Balliol College Annexe - Jowett Walk, Wolfson Room, Jowett Walk OX1 3TL
Series
Oxford International Relations Society
Audience
Public
Cost
Free
Booking
Not required
Please note that this event is taking place at Balliol Jowett Walk, NOT Balliol College main site.
The Horn of Africa not only remains one of the most crucial bottlenecks for international trade but has been subject to fierce and relentless civil conflict. The European Union has, along with the UN and NATO, aimed to create humanitarian relief and facilitate piece in the region. Yet, resource competition in Ethiopia or humanitarian crises in Somalia and the Sudan still dominate the political realities at the Horn.

Join the Oxford University International Relations Society in hearing first hand the EU's diplomatic perspective on the challenges at the Horn of Africa. What are the diplomatic options most likely to resolve conflict and suffering at the Horn? What can the EU as a Western transnational institution contribute to the process, what mistakes does it have to learn from? And ultimately, what is the nature of work as a diplomat for the EU, representing the foreign policy of 27 member states with sometimes vastly different perspectives on the same problem?

Dr. Annette Weber is a German political scientist specialised in Northeast Africa and gender studies. She has been serving as European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for the Horn of Africa since 1 July 2021. Weber previously worked as a journalist, a human rights defender and most recently as the regional expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (German: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik; SWP). She is also a novelist.