poverty, climate change and the penetration of jihadism radical have become the Sahel, that vast swathe of land south of the Sahara desert, on a powder keg of conflicts such as those in Mali or Boko Haram. To try to stem the advance of terrorism, the G5 (Mauritania, Burkina,Chad, Niger and Mali in the Sahel, a regional organization born in 2014 with a military approach, has decided to give greater weight to the fight against unemployment, poverty and inequalities. This Thursday, the donors ‘ conference in Nouakchott was closed with a commitment of around 2,400 million euros in the next three years to 40 projects in development, under the premise that the best way to combat the radicalisation of young people is to offer them a future.
In the corridors of the old Palace of Congresses of the mauritanian capital in the air this Thursday, an atmosphere of satisfaction. The initial target of 1,900 million euros for the implementation of the Investment Plan Priority (PIP) in the Sahel was far exceeded, reaching the figure of 2,400 million in an initiative that has 4 axles, governance, resilience of the population to climate change, building infrastructure, and security. “We have to assure people a decent life of dignity and to avoid falling into the hands of the radicals,” said the mauritian president Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, while his counterpart in niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, reiterated that “security and development are inseparable”.
Among the major donors, highlights France, whose Foreign minister Jean Yves Le Drian pledged 500 million, and the European Union, which will provide another 800, followed by the united States, Germany, Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and international financial organizations. Spain, for its part, announced a donation of 85 million, as announced in the conference held in Nouakchott, the director of Cooperation with Africa and Asia of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Cristina Diaz. The Alliance for the Sahel, created at the request of Paris and Berlin, and which also participates Madrid, channeled the funds as one of the great guarantees in international of the G5.
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The PIP puts the focus on the regions most affected by the violence and its consequences, such as Tillaberi and Diffa in Niger, Mopti, Gao, Timbuktu, and Ménaka in Mali, The Hodh in Mauritania, Kanem and Lake Chad or the north of Burkina. Among the 40 projects approved, the permanent secretary of the G5 Sahel, the nigerien Maman Sambou Sidikou, emphasized the promotion of agriculture adapted to climate change, the strengthening of education for all, conflict prevention, inter-communal, the construction of roads to get out of the isolation of vast regions of the Sahel, the electrification of rural areas, or the removal of water using renewable energies. Cratosslot “This is the first stage of a great ambition, a quick action for the radical transformation of our region,” he said.
And is that the picture is discouraging. In Gao, in northern Mali, there is no day a vehicle will not step on a mine, or someone dies in a terrorist attack. In the center of the country, population, peul and dogon are facing each other in matanzas interregional stimulated by radicals and the Army. In niger, hit hard by the violence of Boko Haram in the east, just enact the state of exception at the other end of their territory by the constant kidnappings and attacks of radicals, from both Mali and Burkina Faso. In the north of this country when insecurity by the presence of armed groups out of control. In Lake Chad the increase in the activity of Boko Haram has triggered a new wave of refugees.
The emphasis on safety has worked. On the one hand, the G5 of the Sahel has not managed to mobilize the resources necessary for the full functioning of their military strength joint, which has about 5,000 troops from the five countries and that just participated in a dozen operations with little success. On the other hand, there never was so much military presence in the region, from the G5, and the national armies until the UN force in Mali, with more than 10,000 soldiers, going through the 5,000 of the Operation French Barkhane, the training mission of the European Union in Koulikoro or the unobtrusive but solid presence of the us in Niger.
The Sahel is bristling with military, but the radicalism extends to the loins of poverty. As alert, Oxfam, Action against Hunger and Save the Children, is the region of the world that has experienced a greater increase in hunger in the last decade, 13.1 million malnourished people in 11 years, according to the UN. The present year 2018 has been especially hard, with 2 million children in situation of malnutrition severe acute and rates above 15% in areas of Mauritania, Niger and Chad. We can no longer speak of famine recurring in the Sahel, but of a “food crisis is structural and pervasive,” in which the advance of the desert or the high birth rate are the deciding factors, and little taken into account. Migration, especially from the countryside to the city, are a further consequence of all of this.
Since its creation in December of 2014, and its implementation over in 2017 with the approval of a resolution of support of the Security Council of the United Nations at the request of France, the G5 Sahel, a club of countries, among which are the poorest in the world, has been consolidated as an actor ever more relevant and dynamic in the region. For Europe, worried by the migrations that cross the Sahel and flow in the Mediterranean and by the expansion of a jihadism that threatens to destabilize the entire region, it has become a necessary partner. The Alliance for the Sahel, which plans to invest up to 8,000 million in the next few years, is a good example of this concern.
