Cross-border conflict, evidence, policy and trends (XCEPT)

This five-year policy-focused research programme seeks to respond to the challenges of long-term cross-border conflicts by exploring the drivers behind them.

Chatham House’s XCEPT research looks at transnational conflict across the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. By tracing the movement of people, goods and capital across borders, the programme considers how conflict is not contained to national borders and what this means for effective and efficient policy and programming.

Research is aimed at operationalizing transnational policy approaches which effectively address the complexity of cross-border conflict while being responsive to developments on the ground and the impact of conflicts on populations. The research draws on a range of research methods such as an innovative use of satellite data, focus groups and in-depth interviews.

Chatham House’s XCEPT research considers three case studies supported by cross-cutting workstreams on gender and social inclusion, and conflict response. Each produces analysis and recommendations to inform international policy response to conflict across borders.

Iraq and the Levant

XCEPT work on Iraq and the Levant examines transnational flow of arms and fighters, as well as key conflict hubs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the wider region.

Transnational conflict in the Middle East is fuelled by both ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ trade. Mapping these cross-border dynamics can help understand and address violent conflict.

This paper explores how the remote border district of Sinjar in Iraq became a transnational conflict hub that threatens wider security in the Middle East.

A system involving doctors, pharmacists, political parties, armed groups, and businesspeople fuels corruption and conflict in a medicine supply chain which kills people every year.

Poor infrastructure and even poorer governance is a critical part of the story of healthcare in Iraq, but so too is the complex issue of the movement and supply of medicines.

Human smuggling and trafficking to Libya

XCEPT work focuses on the interplay of the movement of people from Nigeria and Niger to and through Libya, investigating how the movement of people has become a key resource for the Libyan conflict economy.

Exploitation and abuse of Nigerians and other people moving have become a profitable revenue source for armed groups in Libya. Tackling this situation will require both a transnational approach and policy tools beyond those traditionally associated with conflict response.

A group of migrant men, mainly from Niger and Nigeria, have a rest next to pick up vehicles, during a journey across the Air dessert, northern Niger.

This episode discusses transnational links between the movement of people and armed conflict – from Edo State in Nigeria, through Niger, to Libya.

This episode examines the violence and harm caused by these illicit practices, and the international responses to them as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

Sudan’s borderlands

XCEPT work seeks to understand the conflicts’ transnational dimensions and impacts on the contestation of land (and related agricultural products like sesame) and the gold trade’s impact on the Sudan war.

A small jeweller stall in a market in Oromo, Sambate, Ethiopia on 21 February 2016.

The contestation over gold – and its connection to transnational networks – is becoming a major driver of Ethiopia’s complex conflicts.

Amid civil war and territorial rivalry on both sides of the Ethiopia–Sudan border, sesame has become central to a conflict economy that perpetuates violence and political instability.

Long-running border disputes between Ethiopia and Sudan are intersecting with other internal conflicts, bringing greater militarization and economic instability.

Heavy smoke billows above buildings in the vicinity of the Khartoum airport amid clashes in the Sudanese capital as paramilitaries and the regular army trade attacks on each other's bases. Photo by AFP via Getty Images.

In this episode, guests discuss gold’s connection to the current war and transnational dynamics.

After nearly a year of devastating conflict, there is little sign of a ceasefire. Concerted high-level international pressure is needed to change the calculations of the generals and support a democratic transition.

Approaching conflict as a national issue sidelines a complex web of transnational influences and threatens prospects for sustainable peace.

This paper explores the regional dimensions of the two-year civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and the potential for successful implementation of the November 2022 peace agreement.

More cohesive international engagement is needed to support stability in Ethiopia and Sudan and resolve damaging cross-border disputes that jeopardize security and development across the Horn of Africa.

This episode examines relations between Ethiopia and Sudan as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

This episode of Africa Aware examines the relationship between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Project experts

Iro Aghedo

Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science; Assistant Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Benin, Nigeria

Hayder Al-Shakeri

Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

Tighisti Amare

Deputy Director, Africa Programme

Dr Abel Abate Demissie

Associate Fellow, Africa Programme

Tim Eaton

Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

Leah de Haan

Project Manager, XCEPT, Middle East and North Africa Programme; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Chair

Dr Renad Mansour

Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme; Project Director, Iraq Initiative

Lubna Olayan

Senior Adviser

Dr Zmkan Saleem

Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

Ahmed Soliman

Senior Research Fellow, Africa Programme

Peter Tinti

Senior Research Fellow, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Dr Sanam Vakil

Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme

Funding

Chatham House’s work is part of the broader XCEPT consortium which brings together leading organizations working on conflict. This includes The Asia Foundation, the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, the Rift Valley Institute, Chemonics UK, Conciliation Resources, King’s College London and many others. Together, the consortium brings together world-leading experts to examine conflict-affected borderlands, how conflicts connect across borders, and the drivers of violent and peaceful behavior.

XCEPT is funded by UK International Development from the UK government.