Ethiopia's long-awaited National Dialogue Conference officially opened in Addis Ababa on July 15, 2026, launched by the Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission five years after the body was established by parliament in 2021; the conference is structured around eight themes including nation-building, constitutional status of Addis Ababa, transitional justice, and peace-building, with participants ranging from farmers and internally displaced persons to ministers and military officers, who all sit on equal footing