 Hi, I'm Mike Hammer. I'm the Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa for the Biden administration, and I'm here today at USIP, at the US Institute of Peace, to have a meeting with the Red Sea Study Group to discuss policy options and approaches to the horn, which is very strategically important for the United States and for the work that we do. The horn represents a region that is quite important on the continent of Africa. If you look at where it's placed with the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and then the Indian Ocean, they're very important transportation routes that go through those waterways. But also if you think of Ethiopia as the second largest population in sub-Saharan Africa with 110 million people, and then a terrorist group in Somalia, Al-Shabaab, and then the importance of the countries in the region, whether you look at Kenya a little bit further south or further north, Egypt, the issues that attract our attention as the United States, whether it's concerns over stability or concerns about humanitarian needs with a drought or famine, mean that the United States must be engaged and must show leadership. Since taking this job last July, the singular focus was to try to bring peace to northern Ethiopia, the world's then worst and most horrific conflict, which didn't really make a lot of headlines and particularly not since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but one which caused hundreds of thousands of lives and was just a conflict that we were extremely concerned about. And through the work that we did with the African Union, we, the United States, participated as an observer in the African Union-led talks in Pretoria of October and November of last year, which produced the cessation of hostilities agreement on November 2nd. And we're very proud to have supported that effort along with others. And now we've seen a silencing of the guns, efforts to have humanitarian assistance delivery to northern Ethiopia, to the affected regions of Tigray, Afar, and Amhar to meet the needs of the people, restoration of services, and now to move to other issues of importance, including ensuring that Eritrean troops are completely removed from the region and that you deal with other Amhara special forces and final groups that are active in the area. I was just in Ethiopia, I returned last week where Secretary Blinken had very productive meetings with Prime Minister Abhi and his cabinet, and we talked about how we can move forward to try to consolidate the peace, to make sure it's a lasting peace that the cessation of hostilities agreement delivers for the Ethiopian people. And it's important that, of course, you make progress on issues relating to the establishment of an interim regional administration. And we've seen steps in that direction so that schools can reopen, so that health centers can be rebuilt, so that people can return to their jobs or work in agriculture and to bring some level of stability to northern Ethiopia. And we've seen progress, and then we'll look at issues relating to demobilization, complete the disarmament that's been committed to in Pretoria, and eventual reintegration of some of those combatants into society. And there's the big issues of reconstruction. But even as we look at that, we had conversations Secretary Blinken did with the Prime Minister on concerns of gross violations of human rights and ensuring accountability, transitional justice. So we have a full range of activities that are important to try to make progress in after this very traumatic war that has affected so many Ethiopian lives.