What To Do About The Sahel

Since the summer 2024 issue was first published, the situation continues to deteriorate in the Sahel. Ambassador Phillip Carter III draws on his experiences as a retired American diplomat, career Foreign Service officer, and former ambassador to the Republic of Guinea and the Ivory Coast to offer insights into a potential path forward.

The Sahel is burning. After a couple of decades flirting with incompetent governments, the region has returned to its tortured history of incompetent military juntas. The expansion of jihadist insurgencies coupled with aggravated ethnic/tribal rivalries has made conditions even worse. Entire regions within Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are controlled by jihadist groups. Thousands, if not millions, of beleaguered families struggle to survive as education, health, and economic conditions have collapsed in large swaths of each country.

The numbers are stark: In Burkina Faso, 1 in 4 schools were shuttered for the 2023-2024 academic year, leaving more than one million children out of school (UNICEF). Armed conflict has resulted in the internal displacement of 2.5 million people in the Sahel with 1.5 million IDPs in Burkina Faso alone (UNHCR), with the actual number of displaced likely higher by the end of 2024. Still more—approximately 240,000 Malian, Burkinabe, and Nigerian refugees—have fled to neighboring coastal countries (OCHA). The juntas have proven themselves incapable of stopping the various jihadist insurgencies and, along with Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group (now relabeled by Putin as the Afrika Corps), have become violent human rights abusers against their own citizens. The situation in the Sahel is grim and there is little prospect that conditions will improve over the near to medium term.

What Can the West Do?

The United States, the European Union, and other like-minded donors must take a long view to addressing the crisis in the Sahel. Given the animosity of the juntas toward Western governments, little can be done within the Sahel aside from limited but essential humanitarian assistance. Recognizing that the character and balance of development and security assistance have failed in the Sahel would be an important first step to developing new and, hopefully, more effective programs once the time is right to reengage the region.

While the US and its Western partners expended resources and materiel support to bolster the region’s security forces, development funding was not commensurate with the task of addressing the social drivers of extremist and communal violence in these societies.

In this context, West Africa’s traditional donor partners need to take a hard look at their policy and programming failures. The billions of dollars spent on security assistance to counter terrorism without a commensurate amount of support to the region’s social sectors and political institutions proved ineffective in stemming the spread of violent extremism, improving democratic governance, and fostering broad-based economic growth. The scourge of extremism fed on the feelings of despair, disillusion, and disenfranchisement of the Sahel’s burgeoning youth. More than half of the population across Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso is under the age of 18, with even larger youth cohorts projected to follow in the coming decades.

The Various Coups Did Not Occur in a Vacuum

The civilian governments in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso possessed the trappings of democracy but lacked its substance. Poor governance, corruption, and political elitism were the hallmarks of these “proto-democratic” governments. While the US and its Western partners expended resources and materiel support to bolster the region’s security forces, development funding was not commensurate with the task of addressing the social drivers of extremist and communal violence in these societies. These factors, such as the lack of educational or employment opportunities for the region’s burgeoning youth population, rapid informal urbanization, and pervasive government corruption receive marginal attention with donors who are more focused on building or improving bureaucratic “capacity building” in the region’s health, energy, or telecommunications sectors. Humanitarian aid has often outpaced development assistance, applying a much-needed “band-aid” to alleviate the trauma and challenges of thousands displaced by violence and by the effects of climate change. However, this assistance did little to foster the economic growth necessary to support job creation and critical social services, such as education and health. One metric for social development is gender equality. Each of these three countries have some of the highest rates of gender inequality and gender-based violence in the world.

Election and civilian rule do not equal democracy. Governance is key.

For the more immediate term, adopting a long view should have donors take an “outside in” approach to resolving the complex set of challenges that make up the Sahel crisis. The “outside” portion of the approach must focus on improving democratic governance in the West African countries bordering the Sahel, in particular Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Togo. West Africa’s littoral region faces a growing youth population which is exacerbated by the flow of Sahelian refugees. To flip this youth bulge into a demographic dividend, each country must dedicate significant resources to improve and increase education and health services, and spur economic growth through infrastructure and agricultural investments. This will require a parallel investment to instill, improve, and secure good governance. The West must dramatically increase and sustain its development programming in those countries to support these investments. A special emphasis should be placed on improving girls’ education, broadening reproductive health services, addressing gender equality, and enhancing youth employment opportunities. Such investments support young people’s empowerment in ways that, when sustained, result in structural shifts in population age that enhance prospects for good governance and durable economic growth.

There is No Military Solution to Extremism

Security concerns will spur greater security assistance from West Africa’s partners. While necessary given the growing threat of violent extremist spillover, donors and West African governments must carefully consider how best to address these security concerns. The waste of billions spent on ineffective counterterrorism programs in the Sahel must not be repeated in West Africa. The solution resides in addressing the economic and social frustrations and distrust of the region’s youth. In this context, good governance that delivers social and economic benefits to its citizens is the social vaccine to extremism. Investing in the social sector sustains investments in security. Donors also need to be realistic about what can be achieved in democratic development, which must be rooted in the knowledge that democracy is largely cultural and not procedural. Election and civilian rule do not equal democracy. Governance is key. The values that spur democratic processes and institutions take time to develop, through good and effective governance, meaning governments that are responsive to the needs of their citizens and are transparently accountable to them. The tragic lesson of the Sahel underscores how security without good governance leads to failure.

The days of understaffed, underfunded, and under-resourced embassies in West Africa must end.

If the “outside” portion of the approach is difficult, the “in” portion is more complex. As good governance improves the economic and social conditions in West Africa, an aggressive, targeted, and sustained public diplomacy campaign into the Sahel highlighting these achievements will be essential. The US and its Western and African partners should take a page from the public diplomacy campaign used against the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. Positive media messaging (radio, television, internet, satellite, cellular) into the Sahel will be critical to counter the disinformation campaigns of the juntas and their Russian ally. In this regard, the strong use of soft power would be the vanguard for reform within the Sahel. The Sahel’s juntas are already failing on their promise to quell violence, reduce corruption, and improve national welfare. The juntas’ anti-Western jingoism is not delivering greater power to their citizens whose frustration is growing. Providing images of successful neighboring African democracies will provide a potent alternative to authoritarian and autocratic rule for the people of the Sahel.

Finally, this long view perspective with its “outside in” approach will necessitate a high and sustained level of patience and vigilance by the US and its development and security partners. It will mean a much more profound engagement with West African governments, civil society, local governments, business and religious leaders, and, most important, the region’s youth. This investment will require a strong and effective presence in West Africa. The days of understaffed, underfunded, and under-resourced embassies in West Africa must end. Without an effective and strengthened diplomatic presence, a robust development and security program to effect real change in West African and the Sahel will not happen.

Phillip Carter III is a retired American diplomat and career Foreign Service officer, who served as ambassador to the Republic of Guinea from 2007 to 2008 and to the Ivory Coast from 2010 to 2013. He also served as Deputy to the Commander for Civil Military Engagements, United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany from 2013 to 2015. An independent consultant, he is also a fellow at the Population Institute.

Cover photo: People take to the streets of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 25, 2022, to rally in support of the new military junta that ousted democratically elected President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and seized control of the country. (AP Photo/Sophie Garcia, file).