International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) Vol.94, 2022 44 National Dialogue in Ethnically Divided Ethiopia: Experiences and Lessons to be Learnt Abyssinia Abay Mengistu Lecturer of Political Science and International Studies, Ethiopia, Bahir Dar, Bahir Dar University Abstract National dialogues serve as political processes geared toward generating accord in times of deep political crisis and in post-war situations. The armed conflict and political unrest in Ethiopia necessitates national dialogue. However, it has only been one time since 1991 that the EPRDF government established a peace talk commission. The theme of this paper is to investigate the national dialogue parameters and their practicability over the multifold problems of Ethiopia. It also tries to study the national dialogue experiences and show some lessons to be learnt. It was investigated through qualitative research approach; secondary sources of data were rigorously employed and the time framework covers 1991 onwards. According to the finding, the success and failure of different national dialogues have been linked with components such as the mandate, the public buy in, the political context and elites’ interest. The 1991 national dialogue even avowed that these perimeters had a pervasive degree of influence and serve as components of national dialogues. The success of national dialogue in Ethiopia seems to rest up on the inclusion of different stake holders in the political process. Keywords: Ethiopia, National Dialogue, Reconciliation DOI: 10.7176/IAGS/94-03 Publication date: April 30 th 2022 1. Introduction National dialogues are: “nationally in hand political processes geared toward generating accord among a broad vary of national stakeholders in times of deep political crisis, in post-war things or throughout comprehensive political transitions” (Blunck et al., 2017). They're generally attended by broader social group consultations, involving all sectors of society. Their objective will involve broad based modification processes (e.g. negotiating a brand new social contract) or a lot of slender objectives. Despite the fact that national dialogue emerged as a process and attention of scholars recently, countries in Africa, Europe and Latin America have been using it as a process of transforming divisive and repressive political order to a democratic one. National dialogues in South Africa’s post-apartheid transitional justice that gave worldwide prominence to the use of truth and reconciliation commission as a framework of transitional justice, the experiences in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Kenya amplifies how the choice of the transitional justice measure that a society in transition adopts constitutes an outcome of and a vehicle for the implementation of a (new) political settlement (Haider, 2019). From Togo (2006) to Yemen (2013–2014), national dialogues are increasingly regarded as a promising avenue for managing political crises and transitions by organizing broad- based and inclusive negotiations on a national scale. National Dialogues have been held throughout modern history and across the world under different names and in various contexts. For example, the American constitution-making process of 1787 was arguably a form of National Dialogue as it included representatives of all states in a negotiation on the future direction of the nation. Political reforms, transition processes, and the creation of new constitutions were aided by procedures similar to National Dialogues in Southern Europe (e.g., Portugal, Spain) and South East Asia (e.g., South Korea, the Philippines) in the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1990s, political reforms coupled with constitution-making and peacemaking procedures happened in South-East Asia and Latin America. Striving to be inclusive, many shared capabilities regular of today`s National Dialogues. For example in Thailand, the brand new Constitutional Drafting Assembly (1996– 1997) turned into produced from each provincial representative and criminal and educational experts. Domestic dialogue has continued to contribute for the past 15 years Peace process, political reform and / or constitutional enactment Somalia (2000, 2002-2004), worldwide tests from Afghanistan (2002, 2003–2004) and Nepal (2008– 2012) to Egypt (2011), Yemen (2013-2014) and Tunisia (2013-2014) (Elayah et al., 2020). In the early 1990s, National Dialogues had been famous in numerous African nations. Inclusive constitution-making negotiations regularly took the call of so-referred to as country wide meetings with the mandate to facilitate nonviolent and sustainable political reform. For example, the 1990 National Conference in Benin sought to ease the stress generated via way of means of a deep monetary crisis and a parallel erosion of political legitimacy. In the subsequent months and years, Gabon prepared its very own conference (1990), accompanied via way of means of Republic of Congo-Brazzaville (1991), Togo (1991), Mali (1991), Niger (1991), Zaire— main to the Democratic Republic of the Congo—(1991–1992), and Chad (1993) (See Annex of the AU Panel of the Wise Report “Peace, Justice and Reconciliation in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges in