The Horn of Africa rarely makes international media headlines. Issues such as the Tigray conflict, extreme drought conditions and the Nile waters dispute have gained occasional global attention, but consistent and contextualized coverage is often missing. Nevertheless, the Horn is a strategically important and dynamic African sub-region that has been subject to the interplay of foreign interests and local forces for centuries. Despite recent efforts to propel economic development, external players in the Horn of Africa have often engaged in rivalries that have had destabilising consequences for the wider region. Their involvement in the Horn of Africa has mostly been adventurous and self-serving without much concern for the repercussions of their actions. Meanwhile, local state and non-state actors have taken advantage of foreign interests to strengthen their position. This analysis suggests that external actors should tone down their rivalries and engage more responsibly in the Horn of Africa to encourage local players to work for mutual benefit.

After the end of a civil war that lasted for more than two decades, in 2005 hundreds of thousands of displaced people started returning to their communities of origin in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. We use unique data gathered shortly after the end of the conflict in eight villages to describe the characteristics of the returnees visa -vis those of non-displaced households. We find important differences between them. Returned households have fewer assets than those who stayed during the conflict and are less involved in the production of cash crops. Even though returnees seem to face worse economic conditions, we find evidence that they tend to perform better on different health indicators, including a lower probability of disease-related mortality in their families. We explore the hypothesis that behavioral changes related to the experiences during displacement can explain the latter result. In particular, we use a detailed set of variables related to hygiene and sanitary habits and show that returnees are more likely to adopt these measures. We further attempt to provide causal evidence of this hypothesis using instrumental variable estimations as a way to deal with the potential bias induced by self-selection into displacement and return.

The issue of confl ict diamonds has received little attention since the early 2000s. However, the global checks put in place to restrict confl ict diamonds entering the world market are increasingly hampered by both the lack of agreement on what constitutes a confl ict diamond and the global diamond economy's shift towards Asia. This article explores the current state of confl ict diamonds and the international landscape of ailing efforts aimed at reducing them.

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