Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali has won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
The announcement was made by the awards committee in Norway on Friday.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is responsible for selecting the Nobel Peace Prize recipients each year, said it decided to award this year’s prize to Abiy “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”
Abiy was said to have spent his first 100 days as prime minister lifting the country’s state of emergency, granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, discontinuing media censorship, legalising outlawed opposition groups, dismissing military and civil leaders who were suspected of corruption and significantly increasing the influence of women in Ethiopian political and community life.
Along with the notoriety, Abiy will receive a cash award of 9 million Swedish krona, which is about $915,000.
