With over a decade of experience, Sahan provides expert security analysis, risk management, and policy advisory across the Horn of Africa—backed by unique access to key networks and real-time insights into regional threats.
Sahan supports good governance across the Horn of Africa by facilitating inclusive political processes, producing evidence-based insights, and guiding institutional reform through locally grounded, transparent approaches.
Sahan provides strategic geopolitical research and analysis on the Horn of Africa, examining external influence, political transitions, and regional security to support informed, evidence-based policymaking.
Sahan offers expert-led professional development seminars—both public and customized—equipping policymakers, diplomats, and analysts with practical tools and insights to address political, security, and geopolitical challenges in the Horn of Africa.
Since October 2020, the Somali Wire has led the way in reporting accurate and timely news from Somalia and beyond. Offering coverage of politics, security, economics and more, this bulletin remains one of the most widely cited and respected sources on Somalia.
Launched in August 2021, the Ethiopian Cable delves into Ethiopia’s complex political and socio-economic landscape. Published every Tuesday, each edition features key stories translated from Amharic and Tigrinya, providing context-rich coverage of current events.
The Horn Edition, launched in September 2023, casts a spotlight on developments across the wider Horn of Africa. Created in response to the conflict in Sudan, it provides a region-wide perspective through curated and summarised stories from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Sudan.
7 Publications
6 Media Mentions
5 The Research and Evidence Facility (REF)
As Sudan experiences its third lean season since the start of the civil war, the humanitarian crisis continues to rapidly deteriorate. First officially declared in August 2024, famine continues to sweep across the country as fighting intensifies in Darfur and Kordofan. The latest UN Integrated Food Security Phase Classification update warns that Phase 5 (Famine) could spread to 17 additional areas, with 8.5 million people in Phase 4 (Emergency) and over 756,000 in Phase 5 (Famine). The scale of hunger is unprecedented in Sudan’s history, with nearly half of Sudan’s 50 million people now acutely food insecure and 637,000 facing “catastrophic” hunger – the highest figure globally, according to WFP. This is not just a by-product of war, but a deliberate tactic used to weaken and manipulate vulnerable populations. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have weaponised starvation through systematic obstruction, looting, and destruction of food systems.
Every Thursday, Somalis can tune into Radio Andalus, an Al-Shabaab-affiliated radio station, to listen in to a jihadist commander wax lyrical about their upbringing and commitment to the cause. In one such recent interview with Al-Shabaab's appointed Banaadir Governor, Muse Abdi Arraale, he recounts his life, having grown up in Hargeisa before joining Waxda Al-Shabaab Al-Islamiyya (Islamic Youth Unity group) as a teenager and being imprisoned by the Siad Barre regime. Explicitly tying himself to groups beyond Al-Qaeda proper, such interviews represent an attempt to both position these extremist commanders in Somalia's Islamist history as well as humanise them. Increasingly tapping into discourses of Somali nationalism, Al-Shabaab's prolific propaganda output remains among the most sophisticated of any insurgent group. The London-based Tech Against Terrorism, which monitors extremist online content, assesses that Al-Shabaab is "the largest single producer of terrorist material on the internet."