Sahel

The start of 2025 was marked by the official departures of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Now joined in a new organization, the Alliance of Sahel States (Alliance des États du Sahel, AES), the three countries have left ECOWAS facing a legitimacy crisis and concerns for its future. How these blocs decide to interact with each other will greatly influence the future of regional stability and foreign engagements. A divided W ...

L’extrémisme violent au Sahel trouve ses racines dans une combinaison de facteurs historique, politique et socio-économique, tels que l’instabilité étatique, la marginalisation de certaines communautés et l’influence d’idéologies transnationales. Ce Papier retrace l’émergence et l’expansion de groupes comme Al-Qaïda au Maghreb Islamique (AQMI) et l’État islamique au Grand Sahara (EIGS), ainsi que leur fragmentation, illustrée par la création de nouveaux groupes, comme le ...

Il était une fois le G5 Sahel… En 2014, cinq pays du Sahel que sont la Mauritanie, le Mali, le Burkina Faso, le Niger et le Tchad décidèrent avec l’appui d’une puissance européenne de se constituer en un groupe d’États appelé G5 Sahel. Les cinq pays se partageaient plusieurs caractéristiques dont principalement l’aspect désertique du territoire avec une vulnérabilité conséquente aux changements climatiques, l’immensité des superficies territoriales (à l’exception du Burkina Faso), ...

L’enclavement des quatre pays de la région sahélo-saharienne subit des contraintes et induit des effets de plus en plus transnationaux et complexes. Il s’agit ainsi de clarifier cette notion d’enclavement dans ses multiples dimensions, externe, interne et inter-régionale en mettant en exergue les facteurs qui y ont contribué. Cet article analyse ainsi les trois figures de l’enclavement des pays du Sahel. L’enclavement externe, qui se manifeste par l’éloignement des lieux actif ...

The Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel regions have faced multidimensional conflict since 2011. Violence, attributed mostly to violent extremist organizations (VEOs) affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, has put both regions on the global map of the deadliest armed conflicts and worst humanitarian crises. Since 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed, while at least six million people have been displaced in the two regions combined.Simultaneously, floods since August 2 ...

Morocco, leveraging its strategic position and proven expertise in infrastructure development, has proposed an ambitious framework to reconnect the Sahel to global supply chains via its Atlantic coastline. The Sahel’s vast distances and dispersed population have historically deterred significant infrastructure investments, perpetuating a cycle of underdevelopment. Morocco's strategic initiatives in infrastructure stand out as potentially transformative, adopting a comprehensive appr ...

Communities around the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) rely on three major economic activities: farming, fishing, and livestock herding. The floods that began in August 2024 damaged and destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, killed thousands of livestock, and rendered fishing unsafe for fishermen. This climate shock caused families dependent on these activities to lose their primary sources of income. Worse still, these economic activities also serve as the main source of da ...

The Lake Chad Basin is home to over 3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs),[1] a number expected to rise due to the recent flooding affecting Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon since August. While the primary cause of displacement remains the ongoing violent conflict in the region, the climate crisis is exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and, in the short-term, spurring new waves of displacement in areas already hosting large populations displaced by conflict and insecurit ...

Sudan, a nation long defined by civil strife, military coups, and an uneven trajectory towards democratic norms, now faces a devastating internal war. The eruption of conflict on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has escalated into a multidimensional crisis. This conflict, fueled by longstanding political rivalries and resource-based tensions, poses grave risks to the stability of Sudan and the broader Horn of Africa. Beyond ...

تمكنت التشاد من إنجاح المرحلة الانتقالية بمحطتيها الأولى (81 شهراً) والثانية (19 شهراً)، بما في ذلك اعتماد دستور جديد في سبتمبر 2023، وتنظيم انتخابات رئاسية كآخر حلقة في سلسلة مرحلةٍ انتقالية دامت ثلاث سنوات، تكللت بفوز محمد ديبي، الذي شغل منصب رئيس المجلس العسكري الانتقالي (من أبريل 2021 إلى أكتوبر 2022) والرئيس الانتقالي (من أكتوبر 2022 إلى ماي 2024). بعد اعلان النتائج النهائية، حسم السباق الانتخابي متفوقاً على منافسَيْه الرئيسيين: باداكي، وماسرا، ولم يكن فوز محمد ديبي مفاجئاً نظر ...

This Paper was originally published on atlanticcouncil.org On November 6, as Morocco marked the forty-eighth anniversary of the Green March—the mass demonstration that in 1975 paved the way for the country to take control of Western Sahara from the Spanish—the nation’s King Mohammed VI outlined a new regional outreach effort. He announced the launch of an international initiative to “enable the Sahel countries to have access to the Atlantic Ocean.” Landlocked Mali, Niger, Chad, an ...

En mars 2024, la Commission européenne a annoncé, à Bruxelles, le lancement d'un partenariat sur les migrations avec la Mauritanie. Ylva Johanasson, Commissaire aux affaires intérieures, et Mohamed Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lemine, ministre mauritanien de l'Intérieur et de la décentralisation, ont signé une déclaration commune officialisant ledit partenariat. La Commission européenne a annoncé les principes directeurs de l'accord, qui résonnent sans surprise avec le dernier pact ...

The Alliance of Sahel States (AES), created on September 16, 2023, brings together Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso under a mutual defense agreement. The signing of the charter relating to this alliance, which bears the name Liptako-Gourma, was followed by meetings and plans for initiatives that will push the new structure further towards statutes for the alliance, transforming it into a confederation. As an intermediate measure, the three states have already envisaged the creation of ...

تجري العملية الانتقالية في تشاد منذ أبريل 2021 في ظروف صعبة نظراً لعدة تأثيرات داخلية مثل الصراعات الطائفية، الاشتباكات المتكررة بين الرعاة البدو والمزارعين، الاحتجاجات، والاعتقالات) وأخرى إقليمية مثل: ليبيا كقاعدة خلفية للمتمردين، وفاغنر، وجمهورية أفريقيا الوسطى (فاغنر)، بالإضافة الى نشاط بوكو حرام في منطقة بحيرة تشاد على الحدود مع نيجيريا، الكاميرون والنيجر. كما شهدت البلاد تدفّق آلاف اللاجئين الفارّين من الحرب في السودان، مما زاد القلق بشأن توسّع الصراع السوداني إلى داخل التشاد. ...

Breaking Bonds, Forging Alliances On January 28, 2024, the military leaders of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso declared their joint intention to exit the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), presenting three substantial criticisms against the regional organization. Their foremost claimed grievance was that ECOWAS has departed from its foundational vision, implying that foreign influences have diverted the regional organization from its essential values to the detriment ...

L’actualité politique en Afrique est marquée par une série de ruptures qui fait écarquiller les yeux de certains observateurs. Une vague de coups d’État, le retrait de la France de certains pays du continent, la fin du G5 Sahel, la création de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) et le disloquement d’une des Communautés économiques régionales (CER) les plus « intégrées » d’Afrique, la CEDEAO, sont des évènements, tantôt perçus comme une bouffée d’air frais et un espoir de renouveau a ...

L’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES), créée le 16 septembre 2023, rassemble dans un accord de défense mutuelle le Mali, le Niger et le Burkina Faso. La signature de la charte afférente à cette alliance qui porte le nom du Liptako-Gourma a été suivie de rencontre et de projets d’initiatives qui poussent plus loin la nouvelle structure vers des statuts de l’alliance pour la transformer en confédération. Comme mesure intermédiaire, les trois États ont d’ores et déjà envisa ...

Les Dialogues Stratégiques, une collaboration entre HEC Center for Geopolitics et Policy Center fort he New South, représentent une plateforme d'analyse et d'échange biannuelle réunissant des experts, des praticiens, des décideurs politiques, ainsi que el monde universitaire et les médias au service d'une réflexion critique et approfondie sur les tendances politiques mondiales et sur une problématique d'intérêt régional, d'importance commune à al fois pour l'Europe et l'Afrique. Ce ...

Twenty-Four Hours June 23-24, 2023. Over those days, Russia, the sanctioned world power, was not destabilized by the nuclear enemy in Washington, but by one man, who made his wealth serving food to school children and soldiers. A caterer who attempted a revolution. A bald man, who apparently wore wigs during his days off, as the Russian secret police claimed to have discovered when they searched his home in St Petersburg. The photos of the wig-wearing Yevgeny Prigozhin were shown o ...

This report was originally published on iemed.org In the last decade, it has become very clear that climate change is not a problem of the future. This threat multiplier is causing severe natural disasters, rising sea levels, desertification, and rising temperatures in every continent, reminding us that it is not only the global South that is experiencing and will be experiencing its direct effects. It is true, however, that some of the most severe impacts of climate change are ind ...

The security landscape in the Sahel region has undergone significant changes in recent years. From the emergence of Russia as an actor in the region to the persistent issue of trafficking, and the challenges of political transitions in countries including Chad and Sudan, the Sahel faces complex and interconnected security challenges. This insight summarizes our biannual Strategic Dialogues, focusing on the new security landscape in the Sahel, its regional developments, and its impli ...

Africa is acutely affected by the ongoing global democratic recession. In 2020, a military coup took place in Mali. In 2021, four African countries – Chad, Mali, Guinea, and Sudan - experienced military takeovers. Thus far, in 2022, two coups have occurred in Burkina Faso and an attempted one in Guinea Bissau. Yet polling data and activism on the ground shows African youth believe in and are prepared to fight for democracy. ...

Dans cette nouvelle édition du Rapport annuel sur la géopolitique de l’Afrique, et à l’instar des éditions précédentes, le maître-mot est la richesse dans la diversité. Une diversité dans les visions et les opinions que des auteurs africains, habitués de cette tribune où qui la découvrent, alimentent en exprimant leurs réflexions sur des questions clés qui intéressent leur continent : l’Afrique. Du cadre social, à celui militaire en passant par les contextes historiques, anthropolog ...

The sixth African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) was held on July 20-21, 2022, under the theme 'African Security in Times of Uncertainties'. The two-day event was composed of five panels and one report discussion.  • Panel 1: The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Africa • Panel 2: Conflict Resolution and w in Africa • Panel 3: The Worsening of the Food-Security Challenge in Africa • Panel 4: Security Implications of Climate Change in Africa • Panel 5: African F ...

Communities in northern Côte d’Ivoire report an ongoing pattern of questioning, ethnically- motivated arrests, and abuse, in contrast to the good relationships with local forces and police they had until two years ago*. In one case, the national army arrested a number of men, beat them, and held them for up to two months**. In response to extremist attacks, Côte d’Ivoire has increased the military presence in the north, creating a special forces’ base and sending more military per ...

An HRW report details the massacre of at least 300 civilians in the central Malian town of Moura — the deadliest single atrocity in the country’s decade-long armed conflict. Most of the victims were from the Peuhl ethnic group. The widespread political and social exclusion of the Peuhl puts them at further risk of this type of violence and drives a cycle of grievances and fear that empowers violent extremist organizations (VEOs) and impedes peacebuilding. National governments and in ...

Of all the regions included in this report series, Tillabéri is the region that scores best when it comes to both general community resilience, as well as traditional and religious authorities’ functioning. The region is not as exposed to shocks as Est (Burkina Faso) and Ménaka (Mali), and its ability to recover from shocks is high compared to the other regions. Trust in traditional and religious authorities is comparatively high as is their equal treatment of different subgroups in ...

More than two years ago I wrote in a report: “The current downward security trends in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso should serve as a wake-up call for the states in the Gulf of Guinea, mainly Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.” Recent attacks in the northern Ivory Coast and Benin show that signs of earlier years now have taken on unique characteristics. Signs of the expansion of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) to coastal states have been there since at least since 2015. The ...

Dans un contexte de gouvernance complexe, où autorités traditionnelles et modernes se côtoient même si leur pouvoir décroît, le Mali connait depuis de nombreuses années une situation sécuritaire alarmante, notamment dans le centre du pays. La montée des tensions entre communautés agricoles et pastorales est aggravée par la présence de groupes extrémistes. La population du Cercle de Niono, dans la région de Ségou, a été victime de violences inouïes pendant plusieurs mois avant que de ...

This article was initially published on usip.org   The presence of CBAGs raises issues that force a rethink of local implementation of peacebuilding processes. The RESOLVE Network’s multiyear research on Community-Based Armed Groups (CBAGs) has established critical findings for the international community on how to engage, manage and transform violent actors in conflict-affected states. While mitigation efforts tend to target anti-state extremist organizations, understanding the ...

Almost ten years after the beginning of the security crisis in the Sahel, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger face a graver predicament than ever before. In the throes of multiple insurgencies, they and their foreign patrons, including France, have shown the limits of military containment. While these three countries are the victims of terrorist aggression, their crises also have deep domestic roots, including long-standing patterns of state abuses of their populations, even in the more d ...

The proliferation of community-based armed groups (CBAGs) in Mali’s Mopti and Ségou Regions has contributed to transforming Central Mali into a regional epicenter of conflict since 2016. Due to the lack of adequate presence of the state, certain vulnerable, conflict-affected communities resorted to embracing non-state armed groups as security umbrellas in the context of inter-communal violence. These local conflicts are the result of long-standing issues over increasing pressure on ...

Events in the Sahel, and Mali especially, are taking an uncertain and worrying turn. Mali witnessed two coups d’état in less than a year, while the West African Sahel went through its most violent year yet and there are no signs that the violence is slowing down. In the midst of this unprecedented instability, recent developments involving Mali’s transitional government and the international community, France in particular, provide no assurances that things are likely to improve any ...

In the Sahel, and Central Mali in particular, the proliferation of armed groups over the past decade has resulted in formal and informal non-state governance structures. This paper assesses the various definitions and typologies associated with rebel and jihadist governance in order to better understand the mechanisms of governance provision used by key non-state governance providers in Central Mali.   ...

Depuis l’accession au trône du Roi Mohammed VI, l’Afrique s’est transformée en priorité de la diplomatie marocaine. Sur le plan économique, l’Afrique est devenue le prolongement naturel du Maroc en termes d’investissements et d’implantations. Pascal Chaigneau s’attarde sur les relations affaiblies Europe-Afrique, l’ambitieuse relation Chine-Afrique ainsi que les relations entre la Russie, les Etats-Unis, la Turquie ou encore les pays du Golf et l’Afrique. Ce chapitre traite égalemen ...

The Sahel has become more prominent in policymaking circles because of its strategic importance and the urgent nature of the dangers that have become rife in the region. Unfortunately, countries in the Maghreb have been relatively sidelined in recent years despite their potential sizable role in stabilizing the region and spurring economic development. Therefore, the focus of this brief is to analyze the Maghreb’s outlook towards the Sahel, namely from the perspective of Morocco, Al ...

In July 2021, the United Nations issued a condemnation against the “dramatic rise” in attacks against “descent-based slaves” in Mali, calling the violence “unacceptable”[i]. The statement was in response to a tragic episode in the eastern region of Kayes, where landowners using machetes and rifles assaulted a group of indentured laborers to prevent them working on the landowners’ fields. Tomoya Okobata, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, said these “assaul ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a cataclysmic impact on all aspects of the functioning of our world. The relevance of the possibility of the spread of a global virus with the spread of terrorism is not immediately obvious as it is difficult for a direct causal link to be scientifically established. However, taking into consideration how state responses and pre-existing socioeconomic grievances can be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to innovative findings on how terrorist gr ...

Cette édition du Rapport géopolitique de l’Afrique, la quatrième, s’inscrit dans la droite ligne de la philosophie et de l’esprit du Policy Center for the New South, qui milite pour une Afrique partie intégrante du Sud global et acteur, en devenir, dans les affaires mondiales. L’Afrique comme continent et comme espace est le théâtre où se déploient les actions des Africains pour réagir et interagir avec les conjonctures internationales, et l’Afrique comme populations et institutions ...

The Sahelian states of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso continue to face unprecedented violence arising from multidimensional conflicts. According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (2019), “the Sahel has experienced the most rapid increase in activity by militant groups of any region in Africa in recent years. Violent events involving extremist groups in the region have doubled every year since 2015”. In addition to the presence of multiple violent extremist organizations (VEO ...

Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso… L’insécurité fait tache d’huile au Sahel, menaçant de s’étendre aux pays du Golfe de Guinée. Le terrorisme a entraîné la formation de milices d’auto-défense communautaires, et ainsi créé des « friches » sécuritaires dans tout le Sahel, du Bassin du lac Tchad à la région du Liptako-Gourma. Les budgets consacrés à la défense augmentent, contrairement à ceux qui soutiennent le capital humain, santé et éducation. Dans un contexte de croissance démographique so ...

Following months of negotaitions, extremist group JNIM released three foreign and one Malian political leader hostages. Malian government led these talks while France and Italy played minor role, if any at all. JNIM received at least €10 million in addition to 204 of its members released from prison. One of the prisoners released is charged in the U.S. with the murder of a U.S. during Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso attack in 2016. Other members released would provide a major boost to JNI ...

Les pays du Sahel font face à des changements politiques qui affectent négativement le continent africain dans son ensemble. Ce papier, tout en traitant la question des armées et de leurs implications dans des zones de conflits, notamment au Mali, pierre d’achoppement de la région, tente d’établir le lien essentiel entre sécurité et développement. La nécessaire importance à accorder au renforcement des institutions nationales est aussi en filigrane des arguments développés. This ch ...

Au moment où elle fêtait le passage à 2020, l’Afrique était loin de soupçonner que l’année à laquelle elle faisait ses adieux, aurait le funeste “privilège” de porter dans ses registres d’Etat-civil, la naissance d’un virus qui allait paralyser le monde, dans la première moitié de l’année suivante. C’est sur cette Afrique de l’année pré-Covid-19 que portent les différents papiers du présent Rapport. Les uns, reflétant les espoirs, les ambitions et les projets africains et, les autre ...

Les découvertes géantes de gaz au Mozambique, soit 160 trillions de pieds cubes (4 530 milliards de mètres cubes), vont permettre à ce pays très pauvre (6 e produit national brut [PNB] par habitant – le plus faible du continent africain) de devenir un des futurs grands producteurs de gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) au monde d’ici deux décennies. La plupart des majors occidentales et asiatiques sont théoriquement prêtes à investir plus d’une centaine de milliards de dollars (Mds de $) dan ...

Fragile, poor, and conflict-affected Sahelian countries of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso were expected to witness catastrophic health and security situations following the emergence of COVID-19. However, the number of cases and deaths remained relatively low in all three countries compared to other parts of the world. Violent extremist organizations (VEOs) attempted to exploit the pandemic in their narratives, while continuing to conduct attacks in the region. Violence and attacks b ...

Parler de de l’Union africaine sans évoquer la place qu’y occupe le Maroc serait incomplet, car le Royaume a contribué activement à la construction africaine, s’en est séparé, en signe de protestation contre le non-respect de la légalité internationale par les organes de la défunte Organisation de l’Unité africaine pour, ensuite, y retourner, dans le cadre de l’Union africaine. Doit-on parler de retour ou d’admission ? Indépendamment de la réponse apportée à cette question, il convi ...

Six mois après la remise en question de la présence française au Sahel et l’engagement pris pour accélérer les efforts de lutte contre le terrorisme dans la région, la France, principale puissance impliquée dans la région, rencontre ses partenaires africains pour un point d’étape et lance un message fort à la communauté internationale : là où la France s’engagera, l’Europe s’engagera aussi. Le Président Emmanuel Macron a relevé la montée en gamme des armées locales et les récents d ...