No answer to the Sahel’s problems?

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Photo: Martin Wegmann

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A suspected attack by Jihadists on a gold mining site in Burkina Faso left at least 20 people dead on Friday.

The incident is the latest example of escalating militancy in West Africa’s Sahel region, coming in the same week as an attack on two army camps in neighbouring Mali, leaving 28 soldiers dead.

Brazen attacks like this come despite years of efforts to curb regional instability.

The focus has been the G5 Sahel, an initiative launched in 2014 to strengthen cooperation between Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. This includes the creation of a UN-backed task force.

Last month leaders from across West Africa pledged $1 billion in funding from 2020 – 2024 to support counter-terrorism efforts.

All of this is “falling short” of what’s needed, the UN has warned, with Secretary-General António Guterres recently calling for “urgent mobilisation to support countries and people of the Sahel.”

It’s hard to argue with the assessment. In addition to rising violence, the region faces chronic underdevelopment, made worse by accelerating climate change. This year alone 5.1 million people will need humanitarian assistance.

There is potential for wider destabilisation, with growing concerns that the violence could spill over into important coastal economies like Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire.

As things stand, the world is short on answers to the Sahel’s problems.

This report reflects the views of the author alone, not those of How we made it in Africa.


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