In the context of civil war and related political turmoil, sesame farming is no longer just a mainstay of local livelihoods in the borderlands between Ethiopia and Sudan. It plays a central role in a conflict economy that perpetuates violence and political instability.
Over the past three years, civil wars and territorial tensions in Ethiopia and Sudan have profoundly destabilized communities along the 740-km border between the two countries. This has not only created security and humanitarian challenges directly associated with military action, but has also disrupted patterns of local land ownership and control, and sustained a conflict economy around the production and trade of oilseeds such as sesame. These cash crops have long been economically vital to both Ethiopia and Sudan, and competition to control sesame revenues from the regions bordering the two countries has both reshaped local agricultural markets and provided a strategic motivation for conflict participants and members of political and economic elites.
The trigger for these economic changes occurred in late 2020, when a destructive two-year civil war started in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray (see Chapter 2). This conflict, between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray regional government, also involved fighting for control of territory between forces from Amhara and Tigray, two of the 12 regional states under Ethiopia’s federal system. However, the situation was soon complicated by two factors that had the effect of immediately regionalizing the war: first, the involvement of the Eritrean army, allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Amhara forces against the Tigrayans; and second, the incursion in December 2020 of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) into the disputed area of Al Fashaga on the Ethiopia–Sudan border. Although hostilities in Tigray itself ended with the signing of a tenuous ceasefire (the ‘Pretoria Agreement’) in November 2022, both territorial disputes – that between Amhara and Tigray, and that between Ethiopia and Sudan over Al Fashaga – remain unresolved.
Regional stability was also soon undermined by a new conflict. In April 2023, war broke out in Sudan between the country’s two most powerful military forces, the SAF and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). While the war has not yet directly engulfed sesame-growing areas along the border, it has fragmented Sudan. The SAF-led military regime has consolidated its control in eastern Sudan, making the area more vulnerable to militarization and future shifts in the trajectory of the conflict, while also disrupting the political economy.
The implications for rural livelihoods in northwestern Ethiopia and eastern Sudan, both centres of sesame and oilseed production, have been significant. In many respects, sesame is an unremarkable agricultural product like many others, yet it has in effect become a strategic ‘conflict commodity’ – one that is embedded in local, subnational and national political contestations, and in turn implicated in transnational conflicts. Value chains for sesame production have been reshaped, with profits helping to entrench the power of political and armed actors, reinforcing new patterns of land control, and driving informal and illicit trade.
Over the past three years, civil wars and territorial tensions in Ethiopia and Sudan have profoundly destabilized communities along the 740-km border between the two countries.
These dynamics have continued to fuel competition and conflict among the political and business elites in both countries. The transformation of the sesame sector, and its appropriation by armed actors and special interests, is undermining the livelihoods and resilience of local communities. Changes in territorial control have led to the large-scale displacement of local people. Local investors have also been negatively affected by militarization and the loss of land holdings or related income streams. If not addressed, all these shifts threaten to prolong and intensify conflict and the inequalities faced by people living in these areas.
About this paper
The research paper outlines the ways in which the sesame industry is connected to, and interacts with, both internal and transnational conflict dynamics affecting Ethiopia and Sudan. The paper first examines the transnational nature of recent or ongoing civil war in both countries, before exploring the economic and strategic importance of sesame as a commodity, and its role in shaping cross-border relationships – notably in relation to the disputed territories of Western Tigray/Welkait and Al Fashaga. The paper goes on to examine the dynamics driving Ethiopian and Sudanese elite competition respectively. It analyses the perspectives and policies of different military and political factional interests in relation to sesame production and trade, control of agricultural lands, and the status of shared borderlands. The paper also explores how violent conflict has had wider redistributive and transformative effects, creating new power-holders, and thus political and economic winners and losers, in each region. Our analysis emphasizes the point that resource sectors such as sesame – when captured by certain groups, including national armed forces, rebel militias and economic elites – can be used to fuel conflict.
The paper concludes by offering recommendations for effective policy interventions that might help to address internal and transnational conflict dynamics affecting both countries. Some recommendations are aimed at policymakers in Ethiopia and Sudan, while others are meant for regional and international partners supporting stability in both countries and across the Horn of Africa. The latter include the EU, the UK and the US, along with multilateral bodies such as the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the United Nations (UN).
Our recommendations emphasize the need to consider the political economy of conflict, as well as related subnational and transnational dynamics, when addressing conflict management and mitigation in a context of turbulent political transitions in both Ethiopia and Sudan. As a consequence, the conclusions of this paper also seek to inform multilateral institutions’ existing cross-border programmes and projects, including the African Union Border Programme (AUBP), IGAD’s cross-border initiatives and the United Nations Development Programme’s Africa Borderlands Centre.
Methodology
This research paper is part of the Sudan borderlands case study investigated by Chatham House for the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme.
The paper is based on field-research conducted in Ethiopia and Sudan between late 2020 and early 2023. In Ethiopia, primary data collection was conducted in Addis Ababa and Amhara regional state (Bahir Dar, Gondar), as well as in the contested territory of Western Tigray/Welkait. In Sudan, data collection was conducted in Khartoum, Gedaref and Kassala states.
The bulk of field research consisted of semi-structured key informant interviews, conducted in person and by phone. The research was also underpinned by data collection and analysis commissioned by XCEPT for Chatham House, including quantitative data collection on the local economies of eastern Sudan and Western Tigray/Welkait by Emani and satellite and signals data analysis by Satellite Applications Catapult and Vigil Monitor. Desk-based research examined a variety of secondary sources, including academic and policy research on both countries and their local and regional dynamics, official documentation, trade data, and news sources from Ethiopian, Sudanese and international outlets.
The sampling for the interviews sought to represent a broad range of actors and interests engaged in the political economy in both countries and the focus localities of this study. This included government officials (at national and local levels), members of armed groups, regional and international diplomatic actors, academics, policy analysts, businesspeople, farmers, and civil society representatives. The sample also included representatives from Western governments and multilateral organizations. A limitation of the study was not conducting research in other parts of the broader region, such as Eritrea, Egypt or the Gulf states.
Due consideration was given to the safety of the researchers and the potential research participants. The political and security situation in parts of Ethiopia and Sudan meant that not all actors could be consulted and not all societal positions could be included. For example, it was not possible to conduct focus group discussions with local farmers and workers in the sesame sector as the authors had originally intended.
