Sahel

Fluctuating precipitation and extreme weather are long-standing features of life in West Africa, the Sahel, and the Lake Chad Basin. Communities across the region have historically adapted to these unique climatic conditions in diverse ways. However, the growing impact of climate change, coupled with challenges to food security and ecological resilience, has elevated these issues on the agendas of  regional and international policy platforms. Despite this recognition, the region fac ...

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 ...