Where will the ABORNE Annual Meeting take place?

The ABORNE Annual Meeting will be held in Lagos, NGA.

What is the primary focus of the ABORNE Annual Meeting?

The meeting focuses on interdisciplinary research and discussions concerning the multifaceted dynamics of African border regions, covering topics from economic integration to security challenges.

African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) Annual Meeting 2026

Name: African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) Annual Meeting 2026
Start: 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-08-27T00:00:00Z
Location: Lagos

Aug 24–27, 2026Lagos, NigeriaIn-person

Starts in 16 daysRegistration open

The African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) will convene its annual meeting in Lagos, Nigeria. This gathering serves as a critical forum for scholars and practitioners to delve into the multifaceted dynamics of African border regions. The event fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on issues ranging from economic integration and cross-border trade to security challenges and cultural exchanges.

Committees & topics

Topics
Border Governance in Africa · Cross-Border Security and Armed Non-State Actors · Migration and Forced Displacement Across African Borders · Informal Cross-Border Trade Networks · Cultural Hybridity in African Borderlands · Gender and Youth in Borderland Development · Climate Impacts on African Borderlands · Regional Integration and the AfCFTA Era

Why it matters

African borderlands are not merely lines on a map; they are vibrant, complex spaces where diverse populations interact, economies converge, and governance structures are tested. Understanding these regions is paramount for fostering regional stability, promoting sustainable development, and addressing transnational challenges. The discussions at this meeting will shed light on the intricate relationships between state policies and local realities, offering insights into how borders shape identities, livelihoods, and political landscapes across the continent.

The insights generated from this conference are crucial for policymakers, researchers, and international organizations working on African affairs. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the event aims to contribute to more nuanced and effective approaches to border management, conflict resolution, and regional cooperation. The focus on specific case studies and comparative analyses will provide a rich tapestry of experiences, highlighting both commonalities and unique challenges faced by different border communities.

How to prepare

Delegates preparing for this conference should consider familiarizing themselves with the historical and contemporary contexts of border formation and evolution in Africa. A strong understanding of the colonial legacy and its impact on current border configurations is essential. Additionally, exploring the various theoretical frameworks used to analyze borderlands, such as those related to sovereignty, transnationalism, and informal economies, will enhance participation.

Participants should also be prepared to engage with diverse perspectives on issues like migration, resource management, and security. Reviewing recent academic literature and policy reports on specific African border regions, particularly those involving NGA and its neighbors, would be beneficial. Consideration of how local communities navigate and often transcend formal borders in their daily lives, as explored in the "Hidden Stakeholders" lesson, will be particularly relevant. Furthermore, understanding different "Engagement Strategies" employed in cross-border contexts can inform discussions on policy recommendations and community-led initiatives.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Nigeria

As the host nation, NGA is a central case study for borderland dynamics, particularly concerning trade, security, and migration with neighboring states.

Role in topic

NGA's extensive land and maritime borders present significant challenges and opportunities, making it a crucial focal point for discussions on regional integration, informal economies, and cross-border security cooperation. Its experiences offer valuable insights into the complexities of managing diverse border communities and transnational flows.

Ethiopia

ETH's border regions are often characterized by ethnic diversity and historical tensions, influencing regional stability and resource sharing.

Role in topic

The borderlands of ETH are critical for understanding the interplay of ethnicity, conflict, and resource management. Discussions on ETH's experiences can illuminate strategies for peacebuilding and development in volatile border areas, particularly concerning transboundary water resources and pastoralist movements.

Kenya

KEN's borders are vital for regional trade and migration, but also face challenges related to security and resource competition.

Role in topic

KEN serves as a key transit hub in East Africa, with its borders facilitating significant trade and human movement. Its experiences highlight the dual nature of borders as facilitators of economic activity and potential sites of insecurity, particularly in relation to cross-border illicit trade and refugee flows.

South Africa

ZAF's borders are significant for economic migration and regional integration within Southern Africa, alongside issues of informal trade and security.

Role in topic

ZAF's position as an economic powerhouse in Southern Africa means its borders are magnets for migration and trade. Its perspective is crucial for understanding the dynamics of economic disparities across borders, the challenges of managing informal cross-border economies, and the implications for regional labor markets and social cohesion.

Mali

MLI's border regions are central to understanding the spread of insecurity and the challenges of state control in the Sahel.

Role in topic

The borderlands of MLI are at the forefront of discussions on fragility, insurgency, and humanitarian crises in the Sahel. Its experiences are vital for analyzing the breakdown of state authority in border areas, the rise of non-state actors, and the complex interplay of local grievances and transnational threats.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Border Governance in Africa

Most African borders were drawn during the late 19th-century 'Scramble for Africa,' codified at the 1884–85 Berlin Conference and finalized through bilateral colonial treaties between Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. At independence, the Organization of African Unity's 1964 Cairo Declaration enshrined the principle of uti possidetis — that inherited colonial boundaries would remain inviolable — to prevent secessionist wars. The result is a continent of more than 80 land borders, many bisecting ethnic groups, watersheds, and pastoral routes, and most only partially demarcated on the ground. The African Union Border Programme (AUBP), launched in 2007 and reaffirmed by the 2014 Niamey Convention on Cross-Border Cooperation, has tried to shift the paradigm from 'barriers' to 'bridges,' encouraging delimitation, joint border posts, and local cross-border cooperation frameworks. Progress is uneven: fewer than a third of African boundaries are fully demarcated, and disputes — from the Ethiopia–Sudan al-Fashaga triangle to the Malawi–Tanzania Lake Nyasa claim — periodically flare. Today, governance debates center on how to reconcile state sovereignty and securitized borders (often pushed by EU-funded migration controls) with the lived reality of borderland populations who treat boundaries as porous economic and social spaces.

Key players

Cross-Border Security and Armed Non-State Actors

Since the 2011 collapse of the Libyan state and the 2012 Tuareg-Islamist takeover of northern Mali, the Sahel-Sahara has become the world's most dynamic theater of cross-border insurgency. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda (JNIM) and the Islamic State (ISGS, ISWAP) exploit lightly policed frontiers between Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. The Lake Chad Basin Multinational Joint Task Force and the now-defunct G5 Sahel Joint Force were attempts to pool sovereignty against this threat, while the AU-mandated AMISOM/ATMIS missions tackled al-Shabaab across the Kenya–Somalia–Ethiopia frontier. The security landscape shifted sharply between 2020 and 2024 with coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea, the expulsion of French and UN forces (MINUSMA closed in December 2023), the arrival of Russian Africa Corps personnel, and the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which has now formally withdrawn from ECOWAS. Eastern DRC remains destabilized by M23 and dozens of armed groups operating across the Rwanda and Uganda borders, while the Sudan war since April 2023 has spilled arms and fighters into Chad, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Borderland security today is shaped less by formal interstate conflict than by the interaction of jihadist insurgency, transnational trafficking, mercenary deployments, and fragile state authority.

Key players

Migration and Forced Displacement Across African Borders

Africa hosts roughly a third of the world's forcibly displaced — over 40 million people by UNHCR's 2024 estimates — the overwhelming majority of whom remain on the continent rather than heading to Europe. The Sudan war that began in April 2023 has produced the largest displacement crisis in the world, with more than 10 million people uprooted internally and across borders into Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Protracted situations persist around the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and the Sahel, while South Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, and Uganda are major intra-African destinations for economic migrants. Policy frameworks are layered and often contradictory. The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention offers a broader refugee definition than the 1951 Geneva Convention, and the 2009 Kampala Convention is the world's only binding treaty on IDPs. The 2018 AU Free Movement Protocol, intended to complement the African Continental Free Trade Area, has been signed by 32 states but ratified by only four, reflecting deep ambivalence about open borders. Meanwhile, EU externalization — through the Khartoum and Rabat Processes, the Migration Partnership Framework, and bilateral deals with Libya, Tunisia, Niger, and Mauritania — has pushed enforcement deep into the Sahel and Maghreb, raising human rights concerns documented by OHCHR and UNHCR.

Key players

Informal Cross-Border Trade Networks

Informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is estimated by UNECA and UN Women to account for between 30 and 70 percent of intra-African commerce, depending on the corridor, and to provide livelihoods for tens of millions — disproportionately women. Long-established circuits move fuel and consumer goods between Nigeria and Benin/Niger, cattle and grain across the Sahel, textiles through the Horn, charcoal across East Africa, and minerals from eastern DRC into Rwanda and Uganda. These networks predate colonial boundaries and often follow precolonial trade geographies of the trans-Saharan, Swahili coast, and Hausa systems. States have long oscillated between tolerating ICBT as a pressure valve and cracking down on it as smuggling. Nigeria's 2019–2020 land border closure, the criminalization of artisanal mining flows in the Great Lakes, and recurrent fuel-subsidy arbitrage along the Gulf of Guinea illustrate the friction. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), in force since 2021, includes a Simplified Trade Regime aimed at small traders, but implementation lags. ABORNE scholarship has been central to reframing ICBT not as a deviance to be eliminated but as a structural feature of African economies that formal integration policy must engage on its own terms.

Key players

Cultural Hybridity in African Borderlands

African borderlands are zones where colonial cartography cuts across far older cultural geographies — the Hausa across Nigeria and Niger, the Somali across the Horn, the Yoruba across Nigeria and Benin, the Chewa across Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique, the Lunda across Angola, DRC and Zambia. Far from being marginal peripheries, these zones have been theorized by scholars including A.I. Asiwaju, Paul Nugent, and the ABORNE network as laboratories of identity in which kinship, language, religion, and economic life routinely span jurisdictions. Dual citizenship is widely practiced informally even where formally disallowed. Hybridity carries both creative and political weight. Borderland populations have generated syncretic religious movements, lingua francas, and musical and material cultures, but they have also been targets of state suspicion, accused of disloyalty during conflicts and excluded from national development planning. Contemporary debates concern how states recognize 'split' nations in citizenship and language policy, how AU instruments such as the Niamey Convention treat cross-border cultural cooperation, and how digital platforms reshape diasporic and borderland identities. The challenge is to acknowledge cultural continuity without essentializing it or weaponizing it for irredentist claims.

Key players

Gender and Youth in Borderland Development

Women and young people are the demographic backbone of African borderlands. UNECA and UN Women studies indicate that women constitute roughly 70 percent of informal cross-border traders in several corridors, while the African continent's median age of about 19 makes youth the dominant population in frontier districts that are often the poorest and least serviced parts of national territory. Yet borderland women face disproportionate exposure to harassment, bribery, and sexual violence at crossing points, and youth are vulnerable both to recruitment by armed groups and to dangerous onward migration. Policy responses have proliferated but remain fragmented. The AU's Maputo Protocol, the AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade (adopted in 2023), COMESA's Simplified Trade Regime, and EAC gender-responsive border initiatives all attempt to formalize protections. UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security has been operationalized in Sahel and Lake Chad contexts, and donor programs increasingly fund cross-border youth peacebuilding. The unresolved question is whether such instruments meaningfully shift power at the border post, or whether they remain top-down frameworks poorly connected to the lived strategies of borderland women and young people.

Key players

Climate Impacts on African Borderlands

Africa contributes less than four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions but is among the regions most exposed to climate shocks, and borderlands are often where those shocks are concentrated. The Sahel has warmed 1.5 times faster than the global average; Lake Chad has lost roughly 90 percent of its 1960s surface area, displacing pastoral and fishing communities across Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. The Horn of Africa endured its worst drought in 40 years between 2020 and 2023, followed by destructive El Niño flooding. Sea-level rise threatens border deltas from the Nile to the Niger to the Zambezi. Climate stress interacts with mobility and conflict in borderlands. Transhumant pastoralists — Fulani, Tuareg, Turkana, Somali — depend on seasonal cross-border movement that is increasingly constrained by both ecological change and securitized borders, fueling farmer-herder conflicts from Nigeria's Middle Belt to the Ethiopia–Kenya frontier. The 2022 IPCC AR6 and the African Union's Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy (2022–2032) recognize transboundary adaptation as a priority, while the loss and damage fund agreed at COP28 has yet to be operationalized for borderland communities. Debates focus on transboundary water governance (Nile, Niger, Zambezi, Okavango), pastoral mobility protocols, and climate-induced displacement under the Kampala Convention.

Key players

Regional Integration and the AfCFTA Era

Pan-African integration is a project as old as the OAU's 1963 founding, formalized through the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Abuja Treaty, which envisaged an African Economic Community built from eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs): ECOWAS, EAC, SADC, COMESA, ECCAS, IGAD, AMU, and CEN-SAD. Progress has been uneven: the EAC and ECOWAS achieved relatively deep free movement and customs unions, while the AMU has been effectively frozen by the Morocco–Algeria rift and AMU/Western Sahara disputes. Overlapping memberships in multiple RECs create the well-known 'spaghetti bowl' problem for traders and policymakers. The African Continental Free Trade Area, in force since January 2021 with its secretariat in Accra, is the most ambitious recent step, covering 54 of 55 AU member states and aiming at a single market in goods, services, and eventually movement of persons. Trading under AfCFTA preferences began in 2024 through the Guided Trade Initiative. Yet integration faces headwinds: the 2023–2024 withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States is the bloc's first major fracture; the AU Free Movement Protocol remains barely ratified; non-tariff barriers and infrastructure gaps persist; and member states diverge on industrial policy and external trade relations with the EU, China, and the United States.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) Annual Meeting 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

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Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Gender Dynamics Across Cultures

Mapping Relationships

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Cross-Cultural Communication

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Nigeria August 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) Annual Meeting 2026

Aug 24–27, 2026Lagos, NigeriaIn-person

Starts in 16 daysRegistration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Border Governance in Africa · Cross-Border Security and Armed Non-State Actors · Migration and Forced Displacement Across African Borders · Informal Cross-Border Trade Networks · Cultural Hybridity in African Borderlands · Gender and Youth in Borderland Development · Climate Impacts on African Borderlands · Regional Integration and the AfCFTA Era

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Nigeria

As the host nation, NGA is a central case study for borderland dynamics, particularly concerning trade, security, and migration with neighboring states.

Role in topic

Ethiopia

ETH's border regions are often characterized by ethnic diversity and historical tensions, influencing regional stability and resource sharing.

Role in topic

Kenya

KEN's borders are vital for regional trade and migration, but also face challenges related to security and resource competition.

Role in topic

South Africa

ZAF's borders are significant for economic migration and regional integration within Southern Africa, alongside issues of informal trade and security.

Role in topic

Mali

MLI's border regions are central to understanding the spread of insecurity and the challenges of state control in the Sahel.

Role in topic