Horn of Africa Regional Risk Outlook

Strategic drivers

Four structural drivers explain most of the region's variance. Sea access and port competition define inter-state relations. Internal legitimacy contests, federal-regional in Ethiopia and Somalia, armed in Sudan, define the security environment inside borders. External military and commercial presence around the Red Sea imports great-power and Gulf competition into local disputes. Climate stress erodes the livelihood base that would otherwise absorb political shock.

These drivers are coupled. A port agreement alters inter-state alignment, which alters support to internal actors, which alters access conditions for humanitarian operations. Analysts should model the region as a system, and planners should assume correlated rather than independent country risk.

Sources · [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk · [12] INSO

Inter-state dynamics

The principal friction points are Ethiopian sea access ambitions and their reception in Mogadishu and Djibouti; unresolved Ethiopia–Eritrea relations following the collapse of the post-2018 rapprochement; Sudan's conflict and the alignment of external backers; and Nile basin water politics between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

None of these currently indicates imminent inter-state war. All of them generate border incidents, force posturing, airspace and trade restrictions, and abrupt diplomatic ruptures that translate directly into visa, movement and logistics disruption for international organisations.

Sources · [4] GDACS · [7] GDELT Project

Insurgency and armed groups

Al-Shabaab remains the region's most capable non-state actor, with demonstrated cross-border reach into Kenya and Ethiopia and a resilient taxation and extortion economy that survives territorial loss. ISIS-Somalia, while smaller, functions as a financial and coordination node with connections beyond the region.

In Ethiopia, Fano and OLA activity constrains overland movement across large parts of Amhara and Oromia and produces localised, negotiated access conditions closer to the Somali model than to conventional country risk.

In Sudan and South Sudan, the relevant dynamic is armed competition between and within organised forces, with civilian harm and access denial as the dominant operational consequence.

Sources · [5] FEWS NET · [8] Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa)

Maritime and logistics security

The Bab el-Mandeb approaches, the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin should be treated as a single risk theatre. Elevated threat has produced rerouting, higher war-risk premiums, longer transit times and pressure on regional port capacity, with Djibouti, Berbera, Bosaso, Port Sudan and Mombasa each carrying distinct political and security characteristics.

Organisations dependent on regional pipelines should hold at least one validated alternative routing, maintain longer buffer stock than pre-2023 planning assumed, and price schedule variance into procurement rather than treating it as exceptional.

Sources · [8] Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) · [11] IOM DTM

Climate, displacement and humanitarian pressure

Successive drought and flood cycles have depleted pastoral resilience across the Somali, Afar, Borena and Turkana ecosystems, driving displacement into urban peripheries and intensifying competition over water and grazing. Pastoral conflict and cattle raiding are increasingly the proximate cause of localised violence affecting field operations.

Displacement from Sudan is reshaping demographics along the borders with Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, creating host-community tension, service pressure and secondary protection risk along reception corridors.

Sources · [5] FEWS NET · [8] Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa)

Scenarios to mid-2027

Baseline (assessed likely, roughly 60 per cent): continued fragmentation and localised conflict without inter-state war; maritime insecurity persists at current levels; access remains negotiable but constrained; humanitarian funding shortfalls force prioritisation.

Deterioration (assessed unlikely, roughly 25 per cent): a Sudan spillover event, an Ethiopia–Eritrea incident or a major port dispute triggers regional escalation, closing one or more borders and forcing multi-country contingency activation simultaneously.

Improvement (assessed unlikely, roughly 15 per cent): a Sudan settlement or a negotiated port framework reduces inter-state friction, expanding access and shifting the operating constraint from permission to capacity.

Sources · [6] NASA FIRMS / Copernicus · [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk

Planning assumptions

Assume correlated country risk and test whether regional support functions can survive simultaneous disruption in two countries. Assume at least one border or airspace closure event affecting regional movement during the outlook period. Assume logistics lead times remain above pre-2023 baselines. Assume that access, where it exists, is time-limited and locally granted.

Sources · [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk · [12] INSO