The Stakeholder Journey

Project Kickoff

EDI introduced the program to the room for the first time, opening with a focus on accessibility for persons with disabilities alongside a projected Amharic-language slide.

Meeting the Technical Partner

An informal, community-based meeting between EDI staff and community members, with the Life & Peace Institute named as technical partner throughout the program's materials.

Reaching City and Business Leadership

Two consultations the same season: one with the Dire Dawa city administration, one with the local business community, the latter co-presented alongside partner organization Initiative Africa.

The Program Reaches Harar

This was the Community-Led Conflict Transformation Through Participatory Action Research (PAR) program's Conflict Analysis Event, held May 22–23, 2025 at the Wonderland Hotel in Harar, the earliest dated Harar-specific event in the archive, and the program's first documented step outside Dire Dawa.

This same workshop drew 20 participants, 15 men and 5 women, convened to engage community members, leaders, and stakeholders on identifying conflict causes ahead of Harar's own community-dialogue rollout later that year.

Two different wheelchair users appear in the closing group photo, the strongest single image of disability inclusion found across this whole story.

Briefing Stakeholders on the Project

An orientation-style session: a slide titled "Table of Content" lists "About Eastern Development... Project Overview... Facilitators Familiarization and their Role... What is Expected of you." EDI's mission statement was displayed in full behind the speaker, and a presentation slide credits "Birhanu Fantie (Project Manager)" with the June 19, 2025 date.

This was the year's stakeholder kickoff meeting proper: 25 participants, 19 men and 6 women, drawn from woreda officials, the justice and security offices, the sports federation, the Dire Dawa City Council, the police commission, and community representatives. Discussion centered on how the dialogue facilitators would be selected, how much woreda authorities would be involved, the criteria for choosing dialogue participants, and how stakeholders could support the project. Participants pressed EDI to keep the dialogues independent of government interference even as government offices committed to providing venues and mobilization support.

A television crew filmed the session and interviewed a Dire Dawa police officer in uniform and a woman in traditional dress.

Review Meeting, Harar

This was the Community-Led Conflict Transformation Through Participatory Action Research (PAR) program's Review Meeting with Stakeholders, dated November 13, 2025, at the Wonderland Hotel in Harar, supported by SIDA and the Life & Peace Institute, and the clearest evidence in this story that stakeholder engagement, not just community dialogue, formally extends into Harar.

This Harar stakeholder review meeting drew 20 participants, 15 men and 5 women. The date is recorded differently in different places: this chapter states November 13, 2025, while elsewhere the same meeting is dated November 12, 2025, and elsewhere still December 12, 2025. These don't agree with each other, so this chapter's own date is treated as the most reliable of the three. Whichever exact date, this is the meeting at which participants surfaced Harar's own pre-existing peace structure: the "Peace Family," made up of peace mothers and youth peace ambassadors already active across Aboker and Shenkor before EDI's arrival, and recommended expanding the program to more Harar woredas going forward.

The closing group photo on the hotel's front steps again includes a wheelchair user seated in front.

Duty Bearers Workshop

This was the Community-Led Conflict Transformation Through Participatory Action Research (PAR) program's Duty Bearers Workshop, held November 21–22, 2025 at the East Star Hotel in Dire Dawa, the same venue as Chapter VIII's policy workshop, seven months earlier, marking a recurring track rather than a one-off.

23 participants filled the room, 17 men and 6 women, representing the Justice and Security Office, all woreda administrations, the Women and Children Office, the Dire Dawa City Council, the Police Commission, the Youth and Sports Commission, the Religious Council, the Bureau of Finance and Economy, and local media. The workshop worked through six priority issues raised across the community dialogues (theft, drug addiction, youth unemployment, poor governance, football-related conflict, and inflation), with each institution leaving having committed to its own sector-specific action points.

First Round Quarterly Review Meeting with Stakeholders

This was the 1st Round Quarterly Review Meeting with Stakeholders, held May 20, 2026 at East Star Hotel, Dire Dawa, under the tagline "Let's Build Peace Together!" This is the session that explains why Chapter X below is already labeled "Round 2": this one came first, six weeks earlier.

Roughly a dozen to fifteen stakeholders, mostly middle-aged men and women in business-casual dress, sit in rows of small tables facing a single presenter and a projected Amharic-language slide, before a closing group photo of about nineteen people holding the event banner.

Policy-Level Engagement Workshop with Duty Bearers

This was the Policy-Level Engagement Workshop with Duty Bearers, themed "Together for Peace, Together for Change" and "Stronger Together, Better Together: Be Part of the Solution," supported by SIDA, the Life & Peace Institute, and EDI.

Reflection: Round 2 Stakeholders Review

The most recent stakeholder session in the archive: a Reflection Session on the Community-Led Conflict Transformation through Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, prepared by EDI.