Africa has sent more Red Sea envoys but gained little sway, says ISS

Writing on 21 October, Moses Chrispus Okello of ISS Addis Ababa argues that the Houthis (Ansarullah) shattered a core assumption when they seized control of the Bab el-Mandeb in September. The insurgency, he says, can no longer be treated as a northern Yemeni affair. Their ties to al-Shabaab now disrupt a passage that carries roughly 15% of global trade. Conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia have become entangled with the crises of the Middle East.

Okello notes that the two shores reach for different tools. In March the African Union appointed Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania's former president, as High Representative for the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. IGAD has its own envoys for Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, alongside envoys from the UN, the EU, China, Japan and 6 European states. The author calls this crowd "envoy inflation" and argues it delivers little. Middle Eastern states, by contrast, have moved to military frameworks. Saudi Arabia launched the 14-member Multinational Maritime Defence Coalition on 30 July. On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement.

According to the author, Saudi Arabia conducted its first military operation against the Houthis under that agreement on 5 October. Eritrea left IGAD in December 2025, while landlocked Ethiopia and the UAE sit outside both frameworks. Okello stresses that African envoy missions are temporary and depend on donor funding, whereas Middle Eastern states pay for their own interventions. He urges the AU and IGAD to rethink their maritime mechanisms and to streamline their diplomacy.