Nobel Peace Prize 2019 :EMPOWER IAS

Nobel Peace Prize 2019

The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 will be awarded to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali of Ethiopia.

Award was given for “his important work to promote reconciliation, solidarity and social justice”.
Abiy Ahmed Ali has initiated important reforms that give many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future.
He contributed to achieve peace and international cooperation through his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.
The prize is also meant to recognise all the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in the East and Northeast African regions.

When Abiy became Prime Minister in 2018, Ethiopia had been locked in conflict with Eritrea for 20 years.
In July that year, the former Army officer-turned-PM, then 41, stepped across the border, held Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in a warm embrace and signalled the beginning of a peace effort, announcing to the world that war was no longer an option.
The Nobel Committee noted how Abiy, in cooperation with Afwerki, worked out the principles of a peace agreement, set out in declarations the two leaders signed in Asmara during that July visit and in Jeddah in September.
It also listed domestic achievements by Abiy in his first 100 days as Prime Minister — lifting Emergency, granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, discontinuing media censorship, legalising outlawed opposition groups, dismissing military and civilian leaders suspected of corruption, and increasing the influence of women in political and community life.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second largest country by population, but landlocked, while tiny Eritrea is connecting by sea to the Middle East.
Through the years of conflict, Ethiopia had depended heavily on Djibouti for access to the Gulf of Aden and onward to the Arabian Sea. The peace deal opened up Eritrean ports for Ethiopian use.
Ethiopia is a country of many different languages and peoples.
According to international observers, up to three million Ethiopians may be internally displaced. That is in addition to the million or so refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries.

As Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed has sought to promote reconciliation, solidarity and social justice. However, many challenges remain unresolved.
Abiy helped break is about a border dispute that began in 1998

Eritrea map in regional perspective

Eritrea is located in North East Africa and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and other islands along the Red Sea coast. It is bordered by Sudan to the north and west, Ethiopia to the south, Djibouti to the south-east and the Red Sea to the north and north-east.
The name "Eritrea" is of foreign origin and has been attributed to a derivative of the ancient Greek cartographic designation, Mare Erythrean ("Red Sea"), fragment 67 of Aeschylus:

Eritrea - Map of East Africa with the position of Eritrea relative to its neighbors Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Red Sea

Eritrea, once an Italian colony, was merged with Ethiopia in 1936 during Benito Mussolini’s regime, then taken over by the British during the Second World War.
After the War, a United Nations declaration in 1950 made Eritrea part of a federation with Ethiopia.
When Eritrean groups launched a struggle for independence in 1961, Ethiopia dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea in 1962.
After a war that lasted 30 years, Eritrea gained international recognition as an independent country in 1993.
Just five years later, however, war broke out over the control of Badme, a border town both countries coveted. Since then, the two countries were in a state the Nobel Committee described as “no peace, no war”.

In the two agreements during and after Abiy’s visit, the two countries have announced the resumption of trade, diplomatic, and travel ties and “a new era of peace and friendship” in the Horn of Africa.
Telecommunications have been restored, allowing families that were split up in the war to contact each other

The will of the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel established the prizes in 1895
The prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901.
The Nobel Prize is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and activism for peace
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature; and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee
The prize is not awarded posthumously; however, if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, the prize may still be presented.

Who is awarded?
- “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

- The Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 has been awarded to Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege and Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

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