The Pretoria Agreement of 2 November 2022 marked a rare moment of international relief in a conflict that had convulsed northern Ethiopia for two years. The accord between the federal government and leaders from Tigray promised a permanent cessation of hostilities, a roadmap for disarmament and demobilization, unhindered humanitarian access, and the restoration of federal authority and services in Tigray. That diplomatic milestone remains the reference point for any constructive pathway out of the crisis.
By early April 2024 the peace process had produced measurable, though partial, gains and visible gaps. The African Union convened a strategic reflection on implementation on 11 March 2024 to review progress and identify outstanding obstacles. The AU meeting signaled continued regional engagement and acknowledged forward movement on elements such as the handover of some heavy weapons and the restoration of limited services, while also flagging unresolved issues that risk undermining the agreement if left unattended.
Those unresolved issues are strategic. Independent investigators and human rights bodies documented grave abuses during the war and warned that impunity and unresolved violations would poison prospects for durable peace. The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia warned that atrocities had been committed by multiple parties and emphasized that absence of credible accountability would make recurrence more likely. Transitional justice is not a secondary item in the Pretoria framework. It is central to restoring trust between communities and between the centre and periphery.
Security arrangements are another weak point. Implementation of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration has been uneven. Monitoring missions reported that the process of handing over heavy weapons began under AU oversight, but important caveats persist. Large numbers of combatants remained to be demobilized and small arms and light weapons were not comprehensively surrendered. Parallel to this, contested control of territory along Tigray’s borders with Amhara and Eritrea complicates any neat sequencing of withdrawal and DDR. Where authority is contested, local tensions can re-ignite quickly and derail national-level agreements.
The presence of external and non-state armed actors in and around Tigray was among the most dangerous fault lines for the accord as of April 2024. International and regional investigators reported that forces allied to external actors had operated in border zones during the war and that some of those dynamics had not been fully resolved by the Pretoria arrangements. The failure to secure a comprehensive and verifiable withdrawal of all foreign and non-ENDF forces from Tigray leaves space for spoilers and for continued abuses that will feed local resentments and regional mistrust.
The humanitarian dimension must not be treated as a separate sector. Reconstruction, returns, and political normalization are interdependent with the delivery of food, health care, and basic services. Failure to restore services and livelihoods at scale will produce displacement, competition over resources, and mobilization for protection. That in turn will make security actors reluctant to disarm and political actors reluctant to compromise. The AU and humanitarian agencies have rightly emphasized that implementation must be multidimensional and sequenced in ways that reduce incentives for renewed violence.
The regional implications are substantial. Ethiopia is a linchpin state in the Horn. A relapse of violence in Tigray would reverberate across border areas, amplify refugee flows into neighbouring countries, and create openings for rival external patronage that would harden geopolitical competition in the Red Sea and the broader region. Conversely, a credible, verifiable, and inclusive implementation of Pretoria would not only stabilize northern Ethiopia but also lower the risk that local disputes attract wider interstate involvement. The international community therefore has a stake in credible verification and in targeted incentives for compliance.
What will determine whether the Pretoria deal endures is political management as much as technical sequencing. Implementing DDR without credible protections for minorities and property restitution risks leaving a huge cohort of grievances unaddressed. Holding perpetrators to account without credible local buy-in risks provoking backlash. Both elements must advance in parallel, guided by transparent verification and by external guarantors who maintain consistent pressure and conditional engagement. The AU-led reflection meeting was a step in that direction, but it must translate into operational support for verification, humanitarian scale-up, and a politically sensitive transitional justice architecture.
Policy choices for international actors are clearer than they may appear. First, push for independent, well-resourced verification mechanisms with clear mandates on withdrawals and weapons inventories. Second, align humanitarian assistance with confidence-building measures that visibly benefit affected communities and reduce incentives for militarization. Third, back a credible, phased transitional justice program that includes truth-telling, reparations, and selective prosecutions designed to deter the worst abuses while minimizing destabilizing contagion. Finally, avoid binary choices between normalization and accountability. Durable stability requires both. These are complex objectives, but complexity is less dangerous than the alternative which is drift into renewed violence.
As of 9 April 2024 the Pretoria Agreement remains fragile but salvageable. Its survival depends on honest, sustained brokerage by the AU and international partners, on credible verification of security steps, and on a political strategy that ties reconstruction and justice to concrete security gains. The Horn of Africa will be watching. A failure of implementation will not be an isolated Ethiopian problem. It will be a regional crisis of governance and a test of the international community’s capacity to convert a negotiated agreement into lasting stability.