Addis Ababa, June 1, 2024 (FBC) – Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has underscored the significance of the ongoing national dialogue process in addressing the challenges the nation is facing, calling on all Ethiopians to seize this opportunity to achieve a comprehensive victory by resolving outstanding issues through discussion.
In a message posted on his Face-book page, the Prime Minister reflected on Ethiopia’s past experiences with conflict and missed opportunities for dialogue.
He stated, “We have experienced war. We have solved some of our problems. We have repeated uprisings. We have solved some problems. However, the remaining path to address the unsolved problems is through dialogue. We have not tried this path.”
Acknowledging the limitations of war and uprisings, PM Abiy noted, “War and uprisings do not bring a complete solution as they create winners and losers. The defeated will continue to struggle to defeat, while the victor will strive to maintain their victory.”
He contrasted this with dialogue, stating, “Dialogue, on the other hand, makes everyone a winner. Even if we were once defeated, we all fought for our country.”
The Prime Minister outlined three key benefits of the dialogue process saying ‘‘ It will solve, if not all, at least the major outstanding problems.
According to him, the dialogue will promote a culture of dialogue rather than conflict.
It will foster rapprochement and consensus among opposing forces, he said, adding this rapprochement will enable continued engagement on issues in the future.
Urging Ethiopians not to squander this opportunity, PM Abiy appealed, “I ask that we do not miss this chance to achieve a comprehensive victory.”
The Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission, which was established by Proclamation No. 1265/2014 to conduct inclusive national dialogues on fundamental national issues to build better national consensus, has now embarked on implementing the third phase, according to ENA.
The inclusive national consultative process has phases of pre-preparation, preparation, consultative process, implementation and monitoring.
The agenda setting process, which is part of the consultative phase, was officially launched last Wednesday in Addis Ababa, and representatives of various community groups have concluded three days of discussions on agenda items.
Accordingly, they have identified the agendas they want to be discussed in the consultations at the city administration level and submitted them to the Commission.
They have elected 121 representatives to present their agendas during the national dialogue. The Commission revealed that the dialogue will next move to the regional states.