The problems of Tigray are not to be found in former fighters awaiting a sustainable return to civilian life; nor in the internally displaced people awaiting the chance to return to their homes; nor in the hopes for recovery of war shattered communities; nor even in the fact that parts of the region are inaccessible to the regional government.

Rather the problems of Tigray are increasingly to be found in the self-interested pursuit of power – and wealth.  A pursuit which apparently trumps any sense of the primacy of the lives, livelihoods and opportunities of the region’s people.

No change process – not disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former fighters; not regional or national level security sector reform (SSR); not plans for social, economic or political recovery and development – will be able to assure a peaceful, stable, prosperous for Tigray, nor by extension a peaceful, stable and prosperous Ethiopia or Horn of Africa.

The fault with these change processes lies with the intent behind a political leadership which seeks to subvert them to its own ends.   Clearly for some, Tigray’s issues are not technical but political.

In this respect, an apparently wilful assumption on the part of many – including the international community – that process will deliver form is appeasement.  A path of least resistance in which doggedly pursuing the implementation of a programme absolves its sponsors of any responsibility for the fault lines which are inherent in it – even when those fault lines will inevitably contribute to worse political outcomes.

And when those programmes are simplified, compressed and accelerated – or parked altogether – that dogged pursuit stores up worse and worse political outcomes.

In Tigray’s DDR process, the resources available still do not stretch to more than about a third of the number of people who need to be returned to communities in which they might prosper and flourish alongside their neighbours.  But still there is merit in the transitory security and political benefits of disarming some former fighters and releasing them from their costly and potentially destabilising military service.  However, these undoubted wins will not be translated into sustainable peace without a matching plan to support the reintegration of returning former fighters.

Yet the training programme for people in Tigray undergoing the DDR process has been cut from six days to two and the real-world value of the demobilisation grant is evaporating like water spilt on a hot, sunny pavement.  And Tigray still has no agreed vision, strategy or plan to support reintegration.

Whilst this all points towards potential programmatic failure, it will – more seriously – result in political, strategic and security failure.  Without political-strategic intent and active engagement with both process and outcomes, the delivery of the DDR programme for Tigray amounts to putting lipstick on a pig – and hoping that a miracle will occur.

Donors need to decide if they are funding a process or investing in outcomes.  The former is bureaucracy; the latter is strategy.

Without political-strategic intent and active engagement with both process and outcomes, the delivery of the DDR programme for Tigray amounts to putting lipstick on a pig – and hoping that a miracle will occur.  Donors need to decide if they are funding a process or investing in outcomes.  The former is bureaucracy; the latter is strategy.