The region combines proximity to major shipping lanes with direct access to African hinterlands of a large scale. Its extensive coastline stretching from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean of over 4,700 kilometers across Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, creates natural corridors linking global markets to East and Central Africa, partciluarly with respect to its deep ports (Massawa, Assab, Djibouti, Doraleh, Berbera, Bossaso, Mogadishu, and Kismayo).

The Horn of Africa States (“HOAS”) has historically been part of the Indian Ocean  basin trade networks and in the process attracted, since the opening of the Suez Canal in the second half of the 19th century, foreign powers primarily for military and security reasons. Since the global manufacturing base has shifted to the East, these ports and the region’s economic significance are becoming increasingly central as Africa’s internal markets expand and global supply chains seek diversification and resilience. These ports and hence the region are potential anchors of industrial clusters, logistics services, data infrastructure, and value-added trade if integrated into coherent regional corridors.

The geography of the region makes it one of the most consequential yet paradoxical spaces in the global political economy. It is increasingly revealing itself as a zone of immense strategic opportunity whose long-term prospects depend less on the absence of challenges than on the scale and coherence of its structural advantages. Beneath this strategic geography lies a largely underexploited sub-soil wealth base. The region possesses significant deposits of gold, potash, copper, zinc, iron ore, rare earths, and industrial minerals critical to the global energy transition, not........

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