Content uploaded by Oscar Mateos
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Oscar Mateos on May 02, 2024
Content may be subject to copyright.
Oscar Mateos Matín
Lluc Torrella Llauger Javier Rentería Cornejo
from problematic policy-making to
a new ‘transformative pragmatism’
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S
STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL:
FCRI Coberta Sahel Definitiva copia.pdf 1 18/4/24 15:43
The Sahel has become primordial for
European interests. Up to three different
strategies (2011, 2015 and 2021) have been
drawn up by the EU to underpin the
mechanisms and instruments needed
to intervene in a region that is increasingly
perceived as a security problem. The political
volatility and the level of violence, the concern
about migratory flows through the region, and
the growing impact of the climate crisis on the
deterioration of food security and the living
conditions of the local population are factors
that have placed the Sahel at the centre of the
EU's agenda. This repot undetakes a strategic
review of the strategies of the EU for the Sahel
from a critical perspective that highlights the
broadly securitized framework that has
influenced them. Finally, the repot provides
a rethink of the EU’s strategy in the Sahel based
on the production of critical knowledge as
a stating point, the need to redefine core
issues that have informed EU policies, and the
development of “transformative pragmatism”
as a guiding principle for future action.
FCRI Coberta Sahel Definitiva copia.pdf 2 18/4/24 15:43
Study commissioned by Jordi Solé, Greens/EFA
Member of the European Parliament
Facultat de Comunicació i Relacions Internacionals Blanquerna - URL
Barcelona, 2024
A rethink of the EU’s
strategy in the Sahel:
from problematic
policy-making to a
new ‘transformative
pragmatism’
Oscar Mateos Martín
Javier Rentería Cornejo
Lluc Torrella Llauger
Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations,
Ramon Llull University, Barcelona
Plaça Joan Coromines s/n. Barcelona 08001
Tel. 93 253 31 08. http://blanquerna.edu/fcc
First edition: april 2024
ISBN 978-84-122850-0-0
Summary
–Acronyms and abbreviations .................................................................. 9
–Executive Summary ................................................................................. 11
– Introduction ............................................................................................. 13
Problematic policy-making and “transformative pragmatism” .............. 13
Methodology and structure ...................................................................... 14
–Understanding the evolution of the EU’s strategies in the Sahel
region ........................................................................................................ 17
The multilayered origins of instability in the Sahel ............................... 17
EU strategies in the Sahel: a brief and critical overview .......................... 21
The 2011 Security and Development Strategy .......................................... 22
The 2015-2020 Regional Action Plan ..................................................... 25
The 2021 EU Sahel Strategy .................................................................... 30
–Problematising EU strategies in the Sahel ............................................. 35
Securitising Violence, Migration and Climate Change ........................... 35
The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) as a troubling and damaging
framework .............................................................................................. 35
The need to contextualise Sahelian migration .......................................... 36
What climate change story for the Sahel? ................................................ 37
Negative and unintended effects of the operational approaches of the
EU strategies .............................................................................................. 39
The over-militarisation of the strategy ..................................................... 39
The over-dimensioning of migration-related policies ................................. 42
The misuse and abuse of climate narratives ............................................ 45
Institutional dynamics: internal tensions and power dynamics shaping
a diffuse and inconsistent image ............................................................ 48
Local ownership: between rhetoric and practice ..................................... 50
–A rethink of the EU’s strategy in the Sahel region................................. 55
Begin to consider critical local knowledge production ........................... 55
Reshaping the core aspects of the EU strategies ...................................... 56
Towards “transformative pragmatism”? .................................................. 62
– Conclusions .............................................................................................. 65
– Annexes ..................................................................................................... 67
Annex 1. Map of the Sahel ....................................................................... 67
Annex 2. Interviews .................................................................................. 68
Annex 3. Program of the seminar ‘What role for the EU in the Sahel?’
(10/9/2023) ............................................................................................... 69
– References ................................................................................................. 73
5
List of figures
–Figure 1. Fragile States Index 2023. G5 states ...................................... 20
–Figure 2. Timeline of the international missions and main policy
strategies in the Sahel ............................................................................. 22
–Figure 3. Economic contributions to the Regional Action Plan (2015-
2020) ......................................................................................................... 27
–Figure 4. Land degradation in the Sahel (2000-2020 comparison). ... 38
–Figure 5. Refugees and IDPs in the Sahel G5 countries (by country of
asylum) ..................................................................................................... 42
–Figure 6. EU initiatives addressing security and migration interests,
2016-2022 ................................................................................................. 44
–Figure 7. The interplay between harmful narratives of violence, migra-
tion and climate change in the Sahel .................................................... 47
–Figure 8. Problematic policy-design dynamics in a competing regional
context ...................................................................................................... 53
9
Acronyms and abbreviations
ACLED Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project
AFISMA African-led International Support Mission to Mali
APSA African Peace and Security Architecture
AQIM Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb
AU African Union
CEMOC Joint Operational Army Staffs Committee
CIDOB Barcelona Centre for International Affairs
COIN Counter-Insurgency
CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy
CSS Collège Sahélien de Sécurité
DFI Development Finance Institutions
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
EDF European Development Fund
EEAS European External Action Service
EPF European Peace Facility
EU European Union
EUCAP Sahel Mali European Union Capacity Building Mission in Mali
EUCAP Sahel Niger European Union Capacity Building Mission in Niger
EUMPM Niger European Union Military Partnership Mission Niger
EUTM Mali European Union Training Mission in Mali
GSPC Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
GWOT Global War on Terrorism
IDP Internally Displaced Person
IS Islamic State
ISIL Islamic State in Iraq
JNIM Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen
MENA Middle East and North Africa
MINUSMA UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in
Mali
MISAHEL African Union Mission for Mali and the Sahel
NDICI Neighbourhood, Development and International
Cooperation
NGO Non-governmental Organisation
PDB Public Development Banks
PSI Pan Sahel Initiative
RAP Regional Action Plan
RoL Rule of Law
SDG(s) Sustainable Development Goal(s)
SSR Security Sector Reform
TSCTI Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative
UN United Nations
11
Executive Summary
In recent years, the Sahel has become a priority for European interests. The
European Union (EU) has developed up to three different strategies (2011,
2015 and 2021) aimed at strengthening the necessary mechanisms and instruments
for effective intervention in a region that is increasingly perceived as a security
challenge. The region’s political volatility and heightened levels of violence since
the outbreak of the Mali crisis in 2012, exacerbated by recent coups d’état, as well as
growing concerns about migration patterns and the escalating impact of the climate
crisis on food security and local livelihoods, have firmly placed the Sahel at the top
of the EU’s policy agenda.
The Sahel has also emerged as a highly competitive arena for global actors, with
the notable involvement of actors such as the Russian government and the Wagner
Group. This proliferation of actors exacerbates the crisis of legitimacy that France,
in particular, and the EU, as a collective institution, face both within the region and
in broader contexts. Despite an apparent awareness within the EU of the multiple
complexities and evolving dynamics at play, there appears to be a reluctance to
fundamentally reassess the predominantly militarised approach taken to date in
the region.
The report is set against the backdrop of regional and global changes that high-
light the exhaustion and inadequacy of existing instruments. It focuses on two key
aspects: firstly, an examination and reflection on the specific issues influencing the
formulation of European policy towards the Sahel, which are inherently problemat-
ic; and secondly, an exploration of the fundamental elements conducive to rethink-
ing a strategy that is both transformative and capable of fostering greater legitimacy
for the EU, while at the same time generating greater cooperation with local actors.
The following sections of this report present arguments regarding four particu-
larly problematic elements of the various European strategies towards the Sahel.
First, there are concerns about the securitisation - a process whereby complex
issues are construed solely as security threats requiring an immediate response - of
three critical components in the region: the nature of violence, migration patterns
and the escalating impact of the climate crisis. Second, the negative impacts and
unintended consequences of strategies that propose highly militarised patterns of
intervention are a notable problem. Thirdly, tensions and contradictions within
the EU institutions during the strategy formulation process are identified, shaping
the nature of the European approach in the region and influencing perceptions of
consistency and coherence, thereby affecting the EU’s credibility and legitimacy.
Finally, a major concern is the gap between the principle of local ownership, which
is embedded in strategies at a rhetorical level, and its practical implementation,
where the voices and agency of local actors - especially those of a social nature - are
marginalised, hindering their participation in the understanding of problems and
the development of strategies. This gap also contributes to undermining the legiti-
macy and sustainability of any strategy formulated for the region.
Recognising and analysing this underlying problematic framework, the report
argues for a reassessment of the European strategy in the Sahel, based on some fun-
12 ExECUtIvE SUMMARy
damental elements aimed at addressing the challenges identified. Specifically, three
main issues are raised. Firstly, the need to understand local issues through critical
knowledge production, placing institutions such as local universities and local
think tanks at the forefront of analysis. Secondly, a call to redefine and reshape
approaches and strategies from a less securitarian standpoint, taking into account
the complex structural factors underpinning the core concerns of European anxie-
ty: violence, migration and the burgeoning effects of the climate crisis. Finally, the
proposal to promote a concept called “transformative pragmatism”. In contrast to
the so-called “principled pragmatism” that guides European strategy in the Sahel,
this means a pragmatic approach that acknowledges the limits of intervention
while advocating a less intrusive, more transactional stance aimed at maximising a
new added value in the midst of evolving dynamics and heightened competition.
In pursuit of these objectives, the report adopts a qualitative methodology,
drawing on the conduct of 17 semi-structured interviews with various political
and social stakeholders associated with the European strategy in the Sahel. These
interviews were conducted between October and December 2023 in order to gather
insights and perspectives relevant to the subject matter. In addition, the report ben-
efited from a seminar held at the CIDOB Barcelona Centre for International Affairs
in November 2023, which brought together around 20 international experts in the
field. This collaborative forum further enriched the report’s analysis and recom-
mendations by fostering robust discussion and exchange of expertise.
13
Introduction
The Sahel, a semi-arid borderland between the Sahara and the West African
sub-region, encompassing the territories of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina
Faso, Chad and Senegal (see Annex 1), has recently emerged as a region of para-
mount importance for European interests. The European Union (EU) has developed
no less than three different strategies (in 2011, 2015 and 2021) aimed at strength-
ening the mechanisms and instruments necessary for intervention in a region
that is increasingly perceived as a security challenge. Political instability and the
prevalence of violence, particularly since the crisis in northern Mali in 2012, cou-
pled with concerns about migratory patterns through the region and the escalating
impact of the climate crisis on worsening food insecurity and local living condi-
tions, have put the Sahel at the top of the EU’s agenda. Moreover, the past two years
have underlined this perception of instability and fragility with a series of coups in
Mali, Burkina Faso and, more recently, Niger.
The region is also a key arena for the escalating competition between global
players, particularly with the growing influence of nations from the global South.
This dynamic is further complicated by the involvement of the Russian government
and certain Kremlin-linked private security companies, such as the Wagner Group,
whose involvement in selected countries in the region has significant ramifications.
The proliferation of such actors is both a consequence and an aggravation of the
crisis of legitimacy affecting France in particular, but also the EU more broadly,
not only in this region but in various contexts. Brussels appears to be aware of the
complexities and evolving realities it faces. However, instead of acknowledging the
exhaustion and potentially detrimental effects of what is, as we will argue, a highly
militarised approach to the region, it persists in an ambiguous reliance on instru-
ments and methodologies that are clearly in need of reassessment.
PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING AND “TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM”
In the context of regional and global transformations, and recognising the
exhaustion and inadequacy of current instruments, this report seeks to exam-
ine two key facets: firstly, to explore and reflect on the nuanced elements that
underpin the problematic formulation of European policy towards the Sahel, and
to identify the inherent challenges; and secondly, to reflect on the fundamental
principles that could help to re-imagine a transformative strategy capable of gen-
erating greater legitimacy and cooperation with local stakeholders in this period
of crisis and evolution.
In this way, we believe that four particularly problematic elements lie at the
root of the various European strategies in the Sahel. First, securitisation - the per-
ception and framing of complex issues as singular security threats requiring imme-
diate responses - affects the understanding of three crucial elements in the region:
the nature of violence, migration patterns and the escalating impact of the climate
crisis. Second, the adverse effects and unintended consequences of strategies advo-
14 IntRodUCtIon
cating heavily militarised approaches to intervention pose a notable challenge.
Thirdly, tensions and contradictions within the EU institutions during strategy
formulation contribute to shaping the European approach in the region, while
projecting an image of inconsistency and incoherence, thereby undermining the
EU’s credibility and legitimacy on the ground. Finally, a critical issue is the princi-
ple of local ownership, which reveals a gap between rhetoric and practice. While
strategies incorporate this principle at the rhetorical level, the actual involvement
and influence of local actors - especially social actors - is severely limited, both in
understanding societal issues and in designing and implementing strategies. This
discrepancy further undermines the legitimacy and sustainability of any imple-
mented strategy.
Furthermore, as highlighted earlier, these four challenges have unfolded in an
evolving and increasingly competitive global and regional landscape. The prolifer-
ation of new global actors, including Russia, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, has
facilitated the diversification of choices for local political entities - a phenomenon
we might call “strategic polygamy”. This is happening at a time when international
actors, particularly France and more broadly the EU, are experiencing a gradual
erosion of their authority and legitimacy and are facing increasing challenges from
local forces.
Recognising and analysing this underlying problematic framework, the report
argues for a re-evaluation of the European strategy in the Sahel, based on a few
basic elements aimed at addressing the problems identified. Specifically, three
questions are posed. First, there is a call to cultivate critical local knowledge pro-
duction by placing actors such as local universities and local think tanks at the
forefront of analysis in order to fully grasp local challenges. Secondly, there is a
proposal to redefine and reshape approaches and strategies from a less securitised
standpoint, taking into account the complex structural factors underlying the three
central axes - the nature of violence, migration patterns and the escalating impact
of the climate crisis - that lie at the heart of European concerns. Finally, there is a
proposal to promote an approach called “transformative pragmatism”. In contrast
to the EU’s “principled pragmatism” that characterises European strategy in the
Sahel, this approach advocates a rethink based on a pragmatism that recognises
the limits of intervention, increasing competitiveness and structural changes in the
region. It also emphasises a strategy based on a less intrusive and more transactional
approach, aimed at generating added value.
METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE
The methodology used in this report follows a qualitative approach. In order to
contextualise the findings presented here, the research team conducted an in-depth
literature review of European Sahel strategies and related documents, as well as key
EU strategic materials. In addition, both grey literature and academic sources on
EU engagement in the Sahel were examined. This comprehensive review allowed
for a meticulous genealogical analysis of EU involvement in the Sahel, providing a
nuanced understanding of the evolution of EU behaviour in the region within the
broader context of geopolitical dynamics.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 15
In addition, a total of 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted as part of the
research (see Annex 6.2.). These interviews were primarily conducted face-to-face at
EU institutions in Brussels, supplemented by a sub-set conducted in Barcelona and
remotely between October and December 2023. The interviewees covered a wide
range of expertise, including academics, development and humanitarian specialists,
professionals from the European External Action Service (EEAS) and policy officers
from various EU institutions. It is worth noting that the interviews were conducted
with the utmost respect for the confidentiality and anonymity of the participants,
whose identities were carefully protected throughout the research process.
In view of the complex dynamics outlined in this report, the research team
organised a closed seminar at the headquarters of the CIDOB (Barcelona Centre
for International Affairs) in Barcelona on 10 November. This one-day event, which
focused on the key question “What role for the EU in the Sahel?”, attracted the
active participation of more than 20 experienced professionals from a variety of
backgrounds. These included representatives of public institutions, academics,
development and humanitarian experts, and members of European civil society
active in the Sahel (see Annex 6.3). The seminar was carefully structured around
two thematic axes, each chaired by a distinguished Sahel expert specially invited
for the occasion. The opening session, entitled “The EU in the Sahel: an assessment
of the challenges and contradictions of the strategy of the last decade”, provided a
comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s involvement in the Sahel over the
last ten years. The subsequent session, entitled “Security and political dilemmas in
the Sahel: the role of external actors”, provided a forum for in-depth discussions on
the multiple security and political hurdles facing the Sahel, with a particular focus
on the contribution of external actors. During these discussions, the research team
seized the opportunity to gain invaluable insights and perspectives from a wide
range of stakeholders. The collaborative discourse facilitated a refined understand-
ing of the complexities inherent in EU engagement in the Sahel, thereby contribut-
ing to the overarching goal of formulating well-informed policy recommendations.
Following this introduction, the report is divided into three main sections. The
first section examines the evolution of three key European strategies in recent years:
the 2011 Security and Development Strategy, the 2015-2020 Regional Action Plan
and the 2021 EU Sahel Strategy. Through this comparative analysis, we aim to ana-
lyse the rhetorical frameworks used to address different issues, as well as the nature
of the responses and the integration of the concept of local ownership. The second
section focuses on four aspects that we identify as particularly problematic with-
in the European strategy formulation process: the securitised lens through which
Brussels interprets three key issues (violence, migration and climate crisis); the
negative repercussions of these approaches, illustrated through concrete examples;
the discordant institutional dynamics characterised by tensions and contradictions
between EU institutions in strategy development; and finally, the manifestation
and implementation of the principle of local ownership. The third section focuses
on three fundamental aspects that are central to unravelling the problematic facets
outlined and initiating a reassessment of the basic tenets of an approach conducive
to what we call ‘transformative pragmatism’. This recalibrated approach has the
potential to underpin greater legitimacy and sustainability of the strategy in the
region.
17
Understanding the evolution of the EU’s
strategies in the Sahel region
The Sahel has become one of the world’s regions with the highest levels of vio-
lence and presence and activity of extremist groups. Paradoxically, the increase
in the intensity of violence in this region has coincided with the growing presence
of international missions and interventions. As a result, the European military pres-
ence has had not only to coexist and, in many cases, coordinate with the operations
of other European countries (such as France), but also with the military presence
of the US or other actors. The aim of this section is to provide an overview of the
evolution of violence and security problems over the last decade and to understand
the characteristics and evolution of EU missions in the region.
THE MULTILAYERED ORIGINS OF INSTABILITY IN THE SAHEL
To varying degrees, Sahelian states generally occupy the lower echelons of inter-
national human development indicators1. A significant portion of the population
(40%) resides below the poverty line2. Moreover, the Sahel states feature promi-
nently among countries with the highest rates of employment in the agricultural
sector, with 69% of Chad’s and 73% of Burkina Faso’s population employed in
agriculture3. However, the arid nature of this region, with more than 90% of the
workforce engaged in the informal sector, renders workers and their families high-
ly susceptible to both climatic and man-made shocks4. Populations that reside in
remote and marginalised areas, such as the Liptako-Gourma triangle or the Kidal
region in northern Mali, experience pronounced social and economic disparities
that contribute to a widespread sense of grievance among communities as inequal-
ities in access to basic services disproportionately affect tens of millions of pastoral
farmers, herders and nomads in the Sahel5.
1 United Nations Development Programme. 2022. “Human Development Report 2021-22.”.
September 8, 2022. https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2021-22.
2 Crola, Jean Denis. 2019. “Sahel: Fighting Inequality to Respond to Development and
Security Challenges.” Oxfam . https://doi.org/10.21201/2019.4481.
3 World Bank. 2021. “Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) (modeled ILO
estiate)”. World Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS.
4 Quak, Evert-Jan. 2018. “Drivers, Challenges and Opportunities for Job Creation in
the Sahel.” UK Department for International Development. https://assets.publishing.service.
gov.uk/media/5c6ad4b340f0b61a25854a4e/455_Drivers_Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_Job_
Creation_in_the_Sahel.pdf.
5 Baele, Frédéric, Virginie Baudais, Shourjya Deb, Tiéman Diarra, Oumarou Hamani,
Thomas Ouédraogo. 2021. “Humanitarian protection in the Liptako-Gourma region: Local protec-
tion mechanisms and humanitarian response”. SIPRI and Danish Refugee Council. https://www.
sipri.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/rapport_final_juin_2022_final_eng.pdf.
18 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
Table 1. Introductory data for the Sahel G5 countries
Country Fragile
States
Index 2023
(rank)
Human
Devel-
opment
Index 2023
(rank)
Share of
population
under the
national
poverty
line
Share of
population
employed in
the agricul-
tural sector
(%total)
Gini index Share of
population
exposed to
any shock*
Burkina
Faso 21st 184th 41,4% 73% 43,00 87
Chad 9th 190th 42,3% 69% 37,50 77
Mali 13th 186th 44,6% 68% 32,36 86
Mauritania 37th 158th 31,8% 29% 36,00 89
Niger 24th 189th 40,8% 71% 37,30 92
* Exposure to any shock includes: income, education, social protection, finance, water and electricity
(Doan etal., 2023)
Source: Own elaboration with data from The Fund for Peace. 2023; UNDP. 2022; World Bank. 2021, 2023a,
2023b; Doan et al. 2023.
Corruption poses another serious developmental and security challenge. It is perva-
sive, erodes public trust in state institutions and raises fundamental concerns about
the issue of legitimacy6. In this sense, discontent with the state institutional ability
to secure basic needs is one of the central sources of the region’s negative political
developments. The World Bank’s governance indicators rank all five countries of
the Western Sahel among the World’s lower third for government effectiveness7.
Likewise, according to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Mali, Chad and Mauritania
remain below the continental average in terms of governance conditions, with
Chad being by far the Sahelian country with the worst conditions for participation
and inclusion rights8. Since the 2020-2022 period, violence, rule of law, account-
ability and regulatory effectiveness have significantly worsened9. Competition on
water for irrigation and cattle, irregular rainfall and limited employment oppor-
tunities in rural areas continue to adversely impact pastoral and farming econ-
omies. Consequently, the delicate connections between communities and their
environment are undermined. Variations in transhumance corridors and increasing
displacement has led to violent ethnic and communal clashes that pose a threat
to regional stability due to their transnational nature and the incapacity of local
States to mediate and provide effective management mechanisms for the use of
6 Çonkar, Ahmet Berat . 2020. “Development and Security Challenges in the Sahel Region.”
NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Group (GSM). https://www.
nato-pa.int/download-file?filename=/sites/default/files/2021-02/042%20GSM%2020%20E%20
rev%202%20fin%20%20-%20DEVELOPMENT%20AND%20SECURITY%20CHALLENGES%20
IN%20THE%20SAHEL%20REGION_0.pdf.
7 World Bank. 2023c. “Worldwide Governance Indicators.” World Bank. https://www.worl-
dbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators/interactive-data-access.
8 Mo Ibrahim Foundation. 2024. “Overall Governance Trends”. https://iiag.online/data.
html.
9 World Bank, 2023, op. cit.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 19
natural resources10. Importantly, this scenario serves the interests of violent extrem-
ist groups, who are incorporating these events and dynamics effectively into their
narrative.
In 2023, of all militant Islamist-linked fatalities reported on the continent, 50
percent were located in the Sahel. By comparison, the Sahel accounted for 30 percent
of the continent’s militant Islamist-linked fatalities in 2020. In this sense, fatalities
in the Sahel represent a near threefold increase from the levels seen in 2020, when
the first military coup in the region occurred11. As of 2019, Burkina Faso replaced
Mali as the epicentre of crisis intensity in the region while year over year the number
of recorded casualties has increased exponentially both in Burkina Faso and Mali.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), in 2023
the number of people killed by acts of political violence doubled in Burkina Faso,
placing highest after Nigeria in West Africa. Across the Central Sahel, ACLED also
reports a dramatic increase in conflict fatalities, with a 38 per cent growth in political
violence and an 18 per cent growth in civilian deaths in 202312. In this sense, the
Sahel region now ranks as the world’s epicentre for terrorism, accounting for 43% of
all terrorism deaths worldwide compared to just 1% in 200713.
The spread of violence in the region has been shaping a very complex network
of irregular actors in which two main actors stand out for their preponderance and
influence: the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State
in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). Both have been weaving alliances with particular local
groups and actors in which the “localisation” of global narratives such as jihadist
agendas have been key14. For some authors,recruitment strategies and multiple
alliances of these two groups have differed substantially15. While JNIM has sought
to integrate local groups into more nodal networks that appeal to a broader base
of local community groups (termed “pastoralist populism”), the ISGS has sought
to integrate local groups into a hierarchical system of “loyalty and affiliation” to
the central Islamic State (IS), which has driven a campaign of violence that has
escalated in brutality and cyclical attacks through looting and retaliation16. Such
increased level of violence has led to massive forced displacements in recent years,
especially in Burkina Faso and Mali, with around 3 million refugees, asylum seekers
and IDPs in 2023.17 Under this context, Sahelo-Saharian migration, a phenomenon
10 Focus group, 18/11/2023.
11 Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 2024. “Deaths Linked to Militant Islamist Violence in
Africa”. Infographic. https://africacenter.org/spotlight/mig2024-deaths-militant-islamist-violence-
africa-rise/.
12 Nsaibia, Héni. 2024. “The Sahel: A Deadly New Era in the Decades-Long Conflict”.
Conflict Watchlist 2024. ACLED. https://acleddata.com/conflict-watchlist-2024/sahel/.
13 Nsaibia, Héni. 2023. “Fact Sheet: Attacks on Civilians Spike in Mali as Security
Deteriorates across the Sahel.” ACLED. September 21, 2023. https://acleddata.com/2023/09/21/
fact-sheet-attacks-on-civilians-spike-in-mali-as-security-deteriorates-across-the-sahel/.
14 Mateos Martin. 2022, op cit.
15 Raleigh, Clionadh, Héni Nsaibia and Caitriona Dowd. 2020. “The Sahel Crisis since 2012”,
African Affairs, 120 (478): 123-143. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adaa022.
16 Mateos Martin. 2022, op cit.
17 UNHCR. 2024. “R4 SAHEL Coordination Platform for forced displacements in the Sahel”.
https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/sahelcrisis.
20 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
not only related to violence but also to a historically interlinked regional economy
that has never easily understood the meaning of national borders has now become
the paramount concern for EU countries18.
Figure 1. Fragile States Index 2023. G5 states
The maximum value for each category is 10
Source: Own elaboration from The Fund for Peace. 2023.
Mobility was and is one of the key elements of sustaining life in the Sahel. The
Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Protocol on the Free
Movement of People and Goods legitimises this phenomenon and endows it with a
legal foundation19. However, one implication of this is that citizens from the whole
region can legally travel to Agadez (Niger) or Nouadhibou (Mauritania), considered as
hubs for irregular migration towards the EU. In this sense, a troubled colonial legacy,
economic instability, extreme poverty and political and social fragility have coupled
with the conducive conditions for illicit migration, trafficking and the opportunistic
relocation of many violent extremist organisations with increasingly deadly conse-
quences. Against this backdrop, the migration and refugee crisis of 2015 will amplify
and emphasise the securitarian dimension of EU policy in the Sahel.
18 Çonkar. 2020, op cit.
19 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).1979. “Protocol Relating to
Free Movement of Persons, Residence and Establishment”, 29 May 1979, A/P 1/5/79 https://www.
refworld.org/docid/492187502.html.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 21
EU STRATEGIES IN THE SAHEL: A BRIEF AND CRITICAL OVERVIEW
With it all, the last couple of decades have witnessed the implementation of an
array of strategies, aid initiatives and military interventions by diverse interna-
tional actors. These endeavours been criticised because of their limited ability to
reverse the deteriorating conditions in the Sahel, with some authors arguing that
their predominantly militaristic approach has exacerbated the situation rather than
alleviating it. 20, 21
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States identified the Sahara-Sahel
region as a potential theatre for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Consequently,
the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) was launched in 2002 to bolster cross-border security
cooperation among Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad. Subsequently, the initiative
evolved and expanded into the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI),
a comprehensive counter-terrorism program. In 2010, Algeria established the Joint
Operational Army Staffs Committee (CEMOC) with Mali, Mauritania and Niger to
coordinate efforts against terrorism and criminal activities. In 2011, Tuareg rebels
launched attacks in Mali seeking autonomy for the northern region known as
Azawad. The conflict escalated southwards until the decisive French military inter-
vention Serval stabilised the situation on the ground by 2013 while ECOWAS also
organised a military mission sent to support Malian government forces known as
the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA), later transformed
into the United Nations (UN) mandated Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization
Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) under the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (2013).
Concurrently, the African Union’s (AU) Joint Fusion and Liaison Unit, established
by the militaries of eight North and West African countries in 2010, aimed to
facilitate the exchange of information and coordinate collective actions against
terrorism, weapons smuggling and narcotics and established the AU Mission for
Mali and the Sahel (MISAHEL), which, since the Nouakchott Process in 2013, has
failed to operationalise the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in the
Sahelo-Saharan region. This mosaic of strategic initiatives, in which we need to
include the European Union’s Strategies for the Sahel (2011, 2021) and the Regional
Action Plan (RAP) (2015-2020), collectively signify a concerted effort to address the
complex challenges posed by terrorism, governance, poverty and related criminal
activities in the Sahara-Sahel region but also show how little consensus there has
been among states and intergovernmental organisations as to which countries to
tackle and which dynamics to prioritise.
20 Pichon, Eric and Mathilde Betant-Rasmussen. 2021. “New EU strategic priorities for
the Sahel. Addressing regional challenges through better governance”. European Parliament
Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/696161/EPRS_
BRI(2021)696161_EN.pdf.
21 International Crisis Group. 2021. “A Course Correction for the Sahel Stabilisation Strategy”.
Africa Report, 299. https://icg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/299-sahel-stabilisation-strategy_0.pdf.
22 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
Figure 2. Timeline of the international missions and main policy strategies in the Sahel
Source: Own elaboration
In the Sahel, prevailing instability within the region underscores the exposure of
numerous populations to various threats, thereby emphasising the need for strate-
gic and comprehensive policy measures. It is widely assumed in media and politics
that sahelian dynamics are susceptible to reach Europe despite the lack of evidence
that directly links sahelian terrorism and migration to European shores. However,
the political saliency of these dynamics has been key for the EU to ultimately
develop a keen interest in the region given that some of its member states, namely
former colonial powers like France but also countries like Germany, Spain and Italy,
have been deeply engaged with the states of the Sahel and concerned how this can
destabilise the broader Mediterranean region.
The 2011 Security and Development Strategy
In 2011, the EU adopted its first strategy for the Sahel, the “European Strategy
for Security and Development in the Sahel” (hereafter 2011 EU Sahel Strategy or
2011 Strategy). The 2011 Strategy early became the flagship of the so-called secu-
rity-development nexus22 approach of the EU’s stabilisation model, with medium
and short term goals set by an integrated approach to governance. On the one
hand, medium term objectives – 5 to 10 years– were to enhance political stability,
security, governance and social cohesion in the Sahel states in order to promote
sustainable development, with a clear mandate to maintain Al Qaeda in Islamic
22 The “security-development nexus” refers to the intricate relationship between security
and development, recognizing that these two dimensions are deeply interconnected and mutually
reinforcing. This discourse developed in the 1990s is a commitment to a broader understanding of
the idea of security as “human security”. i.e. security is understood as “freedom from fear”, but also
as “freedom from want”. These claims emphasise the need to include socio-economic well-being
and human development in the conceptualization of international security. For further readings
see also: Duffield, M. 2001, 2010, 2014.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 23
Maghreb (AQIM) and criminal networks away from the population23. On the
other hand, short term objectives – 3 years– focused in improving basic services
in contested areas, reducing terrorist attacks and kidnappings while limiting the
capabilities of terrorist and criminal groups, improving the capabilities of Sahelian
states to combat criminal trafficking and terrorism across the region, support
peace agreements, etc24.
The 2011 approach considered security and development in the Sahel as
intertwined inasmuch as achieving the former was understood as a precondition
for Sahelian states’ economic development and poverty reduction25. Under these
terms, security meant hard and palpable actions, with direct references to capac-
ity-building of the military, law enforcement and rule of law sectors to better
face terrorist threats and organised crime26. On the other hand, developmental
objectives appear diffuse and conflated, with general quotes to creating economic
opportunities for rural communities as well as mitigating the negative effects of
climate change27. In a similar vein, the transnational and regional nature of the
challenges that Sahelians face was portrayed as crucial to achieve security and
development in the Sahel. It enforced a securitized regional approach so that “all
the states of the region benefit from capacity-building in the fields of governance,
security and development cooperation”28. With this, the Strategy not only aimed
at portraying a prominent EU role in fostering economic development in the
region but also to become a more salient security provider, especially for Sahelians
and EU citizens, but also in a broader sense29.
Although it is true that security and development constitute the backbone
of the strategy as necessary and complementary objectives that set the basis for
the European comprehensive approach30, generalisations on other priorities (or
the lack of) need to be highlighted. For instance, the first of such priorities is
“to enhance transparent and locally accountable governance and re-establish an
administrative presence of the state”31, assuming there was a previous presence
of the State in peripheral/marginal regions. Migration, while a crucial sector
in the Sahel for the EU –as demonstrated by the launch of Operation HERA in
23 European External Action Service . 2011. “Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel.”
EEAS. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/strategy_for_security_and_development_
in_the_sahel_en_0.pdf.
24 Ibid.
25 Ioannides, Isabelle. 2020. “Peace and Security in 2020 Evaluating the EU Approach to
Tackling the Sahel Conflicts.” European Parliamentary Research Service. https://www.europarl.
europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/654173/EPRS_STU(2020)654173_EN.pdf.
26 European Union External Action Service. 2011, op cit.
27 Ibid.
28 Ioannides. 2020, op cit.
29 Ibid.
30 Mora Tebas, Juan Alberto. 2015. “EU-SAHEL. Regional Action Plan (2015-2020): A
Tangible Holistic Approach.” Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos. IEEE. https://www.ieee.es/
en/Galerias/fichero/docs_analisis/2015/DIEEEA50-2015_UE-Sahel__JAMT_ENGLISH.pdf.
31 European External Action Service. 2011, op cit.
24 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
200632–, is absent in the document33. Despite being one of the most visible con-
cerns, the initial EU Sahel Strategy did not relate to migratory flows, which were
first included in 2015 after the Valletta Summit on Migration.
The completion of the aforementioned priorities was to be achieved via actions
based in four areas: a) development, good governance and conflict resolution; b)
political and diplomatic action; c) security and rule of law; and d) fight against
radicalisation and violent extremism34, 35, 36. These guidelines suggest a European
approach aimed at being reactive and adaptive to changing situations on the
ground and to multilevel action –local, national, regional, and global. However,
whereas the initial focus was multidimensional in tackling both security and devel-
opment, the resulting approach has generally been excessively militarised to tackle
terrorism37 –and irregular migration flows after 2015.
Indeed, the 2011 Strategy, has often been perceived not as an integrated
approach but as a preliminary security exercise to establish “a precondition for
development”38. Moreover, the European rhetoric drawn from the 2011 EU Sahel
Strategy, not only conditions development to military security but also establishes
European interests and stability as a starting point. There is an evident lack of the
Sahelian perspective in the way the Strategy is laid out, without any one single
demand or objective of the Strategy coming from Sahelian voices. With stalled
progress in the field, the discursive framework of the 2011 Strategy hardened over
time39 while concurrently facing criticism for contributing to “the securitization of
EU development policy”40. Although some specific short term results were achieved
kinetically, dealing with long-term regional stability has fallen out of reach since
32 Operation HERA represents a collaborative maritime initiative undertaken by the
European Union with the aim of overseeing migration patterns and curtailing the influx of irregu-
lar migrants along the Western African Route, spanning from the western coasts of Africa to the
Canary Islands, Spain. The inception of this operation was prompted by a surge in migrant arrivals
at the Canary Islands in 2006. Notably, it continues to be an annual undertaking, overseen jointly
by Spain and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX).
33 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
34 European Union External Action Service. 2011, op cit.
35 Mora Tebas. 2015, op cit.
36 Pichon, Eric. 2020. “Understanding the EU Strategy for the Sahel.” European Parliamentary
Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/652050/EPRS_
BRI(2020)652050_EN.pdf.
37 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
38 Gözkaman, Armağan. 2023. “The European Union -Sahel Relations: An Elusive Nexus
between Development and Security,”. International Congress on Eurasian Economies, session 6C:
394–400. https://www.avekon.org/papers/2729.pdf.
39 Mateos Martin. 2022, op cit.
40 Bergmann, Julian. 2018. “Neofunctionalism and EU External Policy Integration: The Case
of Capacity Building in Support of Security and Development (CBSD).” Journal of European Public
Policy, 26 (9): 1253–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2018.1526204.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 25
the publication of the 2011 Strategy. The comprehensive approach41 to security and
development that was initially envisioned has not translated well into practice and
its militarization has proven to be largely unsuccessful and even counterproduc-
tive42, especially due to a lack of ownership and political engagement of local elites
in the capacity-building missions43.
The 2015-2020 Regional Action Plan
While the huge amounts of development aid that the bloc has allocated to the
region cannot be underestimated44, it is undeniable that, both in terms of signifi-
cance and implementation, European assistance in the Sahel has been spearheaded
in the eyes of the international community by the three peace support operations
envisioned to operate within the CSDP architecture. Along with the allocation
of a total of €600m for Mali, Niger and Mauritania (shortly after extended to
Burkina Faso and Chad) in the 10th EDF (European Development fund)45,46, the EU
focused early into regionalizing security assistance through two CSDP missions, the
civilian EU Capacity Building Mission in Mali and Niger (EUCAP Sahel Mali and
Niger) between 2012 and 2023 for Niger and since 2014 in Mali, and the military
EU Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) since 2013. These have coexisted with
MINUSMA (between 2013 and 2023) and Barkhane (between 2014 and 2022) in
conjunction with the G5 Sahel Joint Force. However with persistent instability in
Libya marked by political fragmentation and internal conflicts, a protracted civil
war in Syria, that not only led to a dire humanitarian crisis but also contributed
41 Some authors such as Bernardo Venturi argue that the Sahel has been a “laboratory of
experimentation” for implementing the EU comprehensive approach. See: Venturi, Bernardo. 2017.
“The EU and the Sahel: a Laboratory of Experimentation for the Security-Migration-Development
Nexus”. Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) Working Paper 17(38). https://www.iai.it/sites/default/
files/iaiwp1738.pdf; and –2022. “The EU’s Diplomatic Engagement in the Sahel”. Istituto Affari
Internazionali (IAI) Working Paper 22(08). https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaip2208.pdf.
42 Goxho, Delina . 2021. “Unpacking the EU´S New Sahel Strategy.” Egmont Royal Institute
for International Relations. April 22, 2021. https://www.egmontinstitute.be/unpacking-the-eus-
new-sahel-strategy/.
43 Colomba-Petteng, Léonard. 2023. “What Do ‘Local Elites’ Seek from EU Security Policies
in the Sahel? Re-Thinking the Agency of Non-European Actors.” Cooperation and Conflict,
October. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231197522.
44 Since 2014, the EU has mobilised €8 billion for the Sahel region to cover for its integrated
approach. Of these, €4.6 billion have been for development cooperation, whereas humanitarian
assistance amounts up to €1.16 billion. (European External Action Service. 2021. “Sahel. Strategic
Communications. An Integrated Approach to Address the Different Challenges.” August 2021.
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/sahel-region_en#9354).
45 ACP-EC Council of Ministers. 2013. DECISION No 1/2006 of the ACP-EC COUNCIL of
MINISTERS of 2 June 2006 Specifying the Multiannual Financial Framework for the Period 2008 to
2013 and Modifying the Revised ACP-EC Partnership Agreement. Europa.eu. https://eur-lex.europa.
eu/legal-content/ES/TXT/?uri=CELEX:22006D0608.
46 Council of the European Union. 2013. “Council Regulation (EU) No 370/2011 of 11 April
2011 Amending Regulation (EC) No 215/2008 on the Financial Regulation Applicable to the 10th
European Development Fund, as regards the European External Action Service.” Official Journal of the
European Union. 2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32011R0370.
26 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
to the overall destabilisation of the Middle East and, the emergence of the Islamic
State in Iraq (ISIL) further exacerbated a securitarian management of crises, with
profound implications in policy for neighbouring regions and stabilisation and
peacebuilding strategies overall.
It has been thoroughly argued and criticised both internally and externally that
within the framework of the 2015 Mediterranean refugee crisis, the operational focus
of both EUCAP Sahel Niger and EUCAP Sahel Mali underwent a strategic realignment,
emphasising their roles in providing assistance to national authorities in tasks related
to border control and migration management47. Scholars have noted that the EU also
compromised its own norms by pushing its own security agenda above local demands
and needs. Even EUCAP trainers have complained about the imbalance between the
technical and normative parts of the capacity-building and security sector reform (SSR)
programs put in place48. Clearly, after 2015 the emphasis on stability has been pivotal
and the adoption of the RAP 2015-2020 further strengthened a security-first approach.
The RAP delineated strategic actions, initiatives, and new emerging areas of
focus for the upcoming years through a collaborative process with Member States.
While similar to the 2011 Strategy, notably the RAP publicly disclosed the individ-
ualised resource allocations of Member States across the entire region. Although this
marked a commendable step toward transparency, it concurrently brought to light
pronounced imbalances in both budgetary contributions and task implementation.
France emerged as significantly over-represented and over-burdened while other
Member States demonstrated limited engagement with the Sahel region, offering
marginal and sector-specific contributions49. The primary objectives outlined in the
RAP encompassed the prevention and countering of radicalization, establishment
of conducive conditions for youth, combating illicit trafficking and transnational
organised crime and for the first time, addressing issues related to migration and
mobility as well as focusing on border management50. To further consolidate these
efforts, the EU appointed a new Special Representative for the Sahel in December
2015 tasked with guiding EU actions in the region and facilitating coordination
with local institutions51. On July 13, 2017 at the initiative of France and Germany,
the Sahel Alliance was created to better coordinate and accelerate the deployment
of development aid among the main development partners52 of Sahelian States53.
47 Interviews CE1, PO2, PO1.
48 Jayasundara-Smits, Shyamika. 2018. “Bracing the Wind and Riding the Norm Life Cycle:
Inclusive Peacebuilding in the European Capacity Building Mission in Sahel–Mali (EUCAP Sahel–
Mali).” Peacebuilding 6 (3): 233–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2018.1491683.
49 Interview PO2.
50 Council of the European Union. 2015. “Council Conclusions on the Sahel Regional
Action Plan 2015-2020.” General Secretariat of the Council. April 20, 2015. https://www.consilium.
europa.eu/media/21522/st07823-en15.pdf.
51 Council of the EU Press Release. 2015. “EU Appoints New European Union Special
Representative for the Sahel,” 2015. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-relea-
ses/2015/12/07/eu-appoints-eu-special-representative-sahel/.
52 France, Germany, the European Union, the African Development Bank, the United
Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands,
Luxembourg and Denmark. The United States, Norway and Finland have observer status.
53 Alliance Sahel. 2023a. “The Sahel Alliance at a Glance.” Alliance Sahel. 2023. https://
www.alliance-sahel.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AlliancSahel_EnBref_EN_WEB.pdf.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 27
Overall, in terms of financial support, the EU along with its Member States was able
to mobilise a total of 8 billion euros in the 2014-2020 period. During the deploy-
ment of the RAP, the EU has allocated €4.6 billion for development cooperation
instruments in the region and €1.16 billion for humanitarian assistance. Notably, in
response to the Covid-19 crisis, the EU was able to redirect €449 million to address
both the health and socio-economic impacts54.
However, a closer reading shows a highly disappointing outcome given the
amount of human and financial resources committed and the persisting deteriorat-
ing conditions in the region. The imprecise nature of the description of the projects,
“political dialogue focusing notably on human rights”, “reform of the justice sector”
or “fight against food insecurity and malnutrition”55 present a rather vague picture
that does not specify concrete actions, what goals are supposed to be attained, which
milestones are supposed to be reached or which normative and technical standards
are used as benchmarks for project completion. In the case of approving and monitor-
ing projects, officers complain about the lack of information from the local perspec-
tive and if even surveys are done before and after implementation56. Policy specialists
in Brussels argue that despite that individually, small scale normative actions at state
and civil society level have worked, or at least have not catastrophically failed, there
is a need to scale them up. Project by project the generally established objectives are
reached but they do not integrate and translate further into the political level and
thus render somewhat ineffective medium and long term normative projects57.
Figure 3. Economic contributions to the Regional Action Plan (2015-2020)
In millions of euros. Only countries with contributions larger than €1 million are included
Source: Own Elaboration based on Addendum III of the Council conclusions
on the Sahel Regional Action Plan 2015-2020.
54 European External Action Service. 2021, op cit.
55 Council of the European Union. 2015, op cit.
56 Interview PO1.
57 Interview PO1.
28 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
The heightened securitization of EU cooperation in the Sahel region coincides with
the escalating priorities of Europe’s security and interests in the area. This shift
is particularly noticeable following the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, the
Brexit decision and the Mediterranean refugee crisis of 2015. These events have
induced both EU Member States and the Brussels apparatus to adopt a progressively
pragmatic approach in crafting and executing the common foreign and security
policy, a trend vividly reflected in Europe’s Sahel policy. In stark contrast with the
European Security Strategy of 2003, the 2016 EU Global Strategy presents itself as a
more pragmatic reflection towards the EU´s international relations, openly stating
the EU´s vital interests and no longer enthusiastically emphasising democratisation
while pushing for a “Europe of Security’’. The differences between both strategic
documents are significant and highlight a trend towards what some have coined
“Realpolitik with European characteristics”58.
In 2003, for the EU, “spreading good governance, supporting social and politi-
cal reform, dealing with corruption and abuse of power, establishing the rule of law
and protecting human rights are the best means of strengthening the international
order”59. After 2016, the EU “will be guided by clear principles. These stem as much
from a realistic assessment of the current strategic environment as from an idealistic
aspiration to advance a better world. Principled pragmatism will guide our external
action in the years ahead.”60
The security of the EU itself, the neighbourhood, how to deal with war and cri-
sis, stable regional orders across the globe, and effective global governance became
the cornerstones of EU action in the Sahel after 2016. In this sense, the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) become pivotal focal points within the EU’s strategic pri-
orities61. The document consistently interconnects the MENA and the Sahel region,
aligning North Africa with West Africa and the Sahel through the overarching
framework of the neighbourhood policy’s spill-over vision62. This approach notably
blurs the traditional demarcation between internal and external security concerns
and sets up the basis for multi-year (mostly security) assistance programs without
clear strategic objectives. Additionally, it advocates for an improvement of EU
Member States’ hard power capabilities while arguing that “living up consistently
to our values internally will determine our external credibility and influence”63.
In this period, significant shortcomings have been unveiled while at the same
time the EU’s credibility and leverage in the Sahel has been considerably tarnished.
After the August 2020 coup d’état in Mali, the EU and especially French postures
58 Biscop, Sven. 2016. “All or Nothing? The EU Global Strategy and Defence Policy after the
Brexit.” Contemporary Security Policy 37 (3): 431–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.123
8120.
59 Council of the European Union. 2003. “European Security Strategy – a Secure Europe in a
Better World.” General Secretariat of the Council. 2003. p.37. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-
detail/-/publication/d0928657-af99-4552-ae84-1cbaaa864f96/language-en.
60 European Union. 2016. “Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe a Global
Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy.” p.8. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/
sites/default/files/eugs_review_web_0.pdf.
61 Ibid., 35.
62 Ibid., 30.
63 Ibid., 15.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 29
have been criticised for their ambivalence and hypocrisy64, 65, 66. While with the
2020 coup EUTM Mali and the operational scenario of Barkhane remained relatively
stable, with the 2021 coup, the so-called “coup within the coup”67, 68 led by Asimi
Goita, the second junta was vociferously denounced by France, ultimately ending
Barkhane, largely diminishing the effectiveness of EUTM Mali and facilitating
access for Russia´s Wagner Group69. Simultaneously the Elysée showed no hesita-
tion in endorsing the military seizure of power in Chad in 2021 which resulted in
Mahamat Idriss Déby assuming leadership of a transitional government following
the sudden demise of his father, President Idriss Déby. In order to adhere to the
interests and policies of France as a Member State, the EU maintained a reserved
stance during Chad’s military power grab. While denouncing the forceful suppres-
sion of protesters and emphasising the junta’s need to commit to the 18-month
electoral deadline, the EU adopted a cautious approach to avoid overly critical
consequences given Chad´s significant role as security provider in the Sahel and
the burgeoning diplomatic tensions with neighbouring regimes70. In Burkina Faso,
the EU analysis presents many shortcomings. The 2011 Strategy depicted Burkina
Faso as “relatively successful in pursuing economic development and having a
role in several anti-terrorist activities in the region”71. Considering this, the RAP
had a surprising absence of EUTM and EUCAP initiatives in the country despite its
well-documented deterioration in the years after the 2011 Strategy was published.
By the end of 2023, Burkina Faso has experienced two military coups in January and
September 2022 and jihadist violence originating from the tri-border area with Mali
and Niger has infiltrated vast rural regions of the country.
The prevailing situation underscores a significant departure from the initial
assessment outlined in the 2011 Strategy and the implementation of the RAP 2015-
2020 has proven to be excessively militarised and limited. Inequalities continue to
exacerbate while violence, extremist groups and criminal organisations continue
64 Caruso, Francesca and Francesca Lenzi. 2023. “The Sahel Region: a Litmus Test for
EU-Africa Relations in a Changing Global Order”. Foundation for European Progressive Studies
(FEPS), Instituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Fondation Jean-Jaurès. https://www.iai.it/sites/default/
files/feps_ps_9782931233177.pdf.
65 Interviews PLO1, PLO3.
66 European Parliament. 2024. “Joint Committee of Foreign Affairs and committee
on Development and subcommittee on Security and Defence. 23/01/2024.” Reference ID:
20240123-0930-COMMITTEE-AFET-DEVE-SEDE. https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webs-
treaming/joint-committee-on-foreign-affairs-and-committee-on-development-and-subcommittee-
on-security-and-def_20240123-0930-COMMITTEE-AFET-DEVE-SEDE.
67 Jezequel, Jean-Hervé . 2021. “Mali, a Coup within a Coup.” International Crisis Group.
May 27, 2021. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/mali/mali-un-coup-dans-le-coup.
68 European External Action Service. 2022. “Burkina Faso: Remarks on Behalf of High
Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell at the EP Debate Following the Coup de Force | EEAS.”
EEAS Press Team, October 2022. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/burkina-faso-remarks-behalf-
high-representativevice-president-josep-borrell-ep-debate-following-coup_en.
69 Interview PLO3.
70 Interview A5.
71 European Union External Action Service . 2011. “Strategy for Security and Development
in the Sahel.” EEAS. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/strategy_for_security_and_deve-
lopment_in_the_sahel_en_0.pdf.
30 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
to proliferate in an increasingly complex political and diplomatic environment
in which other international actors like Russia, China or Turkey have emerged as
an alternative to EU partnerships. In 2020, with changing regimes in the region,
a global pandemic, continued increase in violence and with strategic peers rising
in influence in the region, there was a clear need to qualitatively and quantitative-
ly recalibrate both political and risk analysis of the Sahelian context but also to
assess the adequacy of the security-development approximation. A focus on a mul-
ti-phased, security-first approach to stabilisation has left civil, political and social
fields of governance rather unattended in the EU’s Sahel policies while, at the same
time, Sahelians have consistently witnessed how European security interests and
agendas are pushed forward in their countries.
The 2021 EU Sahel Strategy
A decade after the first EU Sahel Strategy of 2011, Brussels renewed and rebranded
its action plan, “The European Union’s Integrated Strategy in the Sahel” 2021.
European policymakers assessed that “the profound security crisis affecting parts
of the region since 2012 [was] hampering its development and risk[ed] wiping out
the progress made in recent decades”72. In 2021, the EU admitted that the security
and development scenarios in the Sahel remain challenging inasmuch as viola-
tions of human rights, corruption and impunity increase the fragility of the social
contract and challenge the legitimacy of the State, already weak by 2011 due to
its prolonged marginal presence in regions within their own territorial limits since
independence73. In this sense, the Strategy’s narrative is again inconsistent. It argues
about the “progress made in recent decades” while declaring that the “considera-
ble military deployment, development cooperation and humanitarian assistance”
have not been enough to break the cycle of intercommunal violence, terrorism and
political unrest74.
With the 2021 Strategy, the objective was to distance from the security-centred
and militarised approach that characterised the previous documents75, portraying
a more normative approach that prioritises promoting good governance, human
rights and economic development to address the root causes of insecurity76.
However, these redefined guidelines for European intervention were established
to satisfy different interests: migration control for Mediterranean countries with
long-term development programmes in the region, supporting France’s Barkhane
military operation, and, above all, introducing “a European dimension into the
security and development sector of the region”77.
72 Council of the European Union . 2021b. “The European Union’s Integrated Strategy in
the Sahel.” General Secretariat of the Council. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/
ST-7723-2021-INIT/en/pdf.
73 Ibid.
74 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
75 Bilquin, Bruno, and Eric Pichon. 2023. “The Coup in Niger Consequences for EU Policies
in the Sahel.” European Parliamentary Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/
etudes/BRIE/2023/753951/EPRS_BRI(2023)753951_EN.pdf.
76 Lenzi and Caruso. 2023, op cit.
77 Ibid.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 31
Bearing in mind the need to redefine the EU Sahel Strategy, the 2021 guide-
lines were based on security, development, migration and governance78. In 2021,
Security, despite connecting it to governance conditions, continues to be linked to
means related to strengthening the fight against terrorism, armed groups, cross-bor-
der trafficking and organised crime. In fact, with newly created instruments like
the European Peace Facility (EPF), the EU was supposed to be able to deliver lethal
equipment, signalling again a strong commitment to military solutions while con-
currently emphasising the need to strengthen normative SSR based on democracy,
respect for human rights and international humanitarian law79. In terms of devel-
opment, the agenda experiences a shift, with assistance now focused to “encour-
age the countries of the Sahel in their efforts to achieve sustainable and inclusive
development, including habitat protection, preserving biodiversity and combating
desertification”80. The 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
are given a more central role, with climate change now encompassing most of the
development agenda. Migration is formally consolidated as a key aspect of the EU
Sahel Strategy as opposed to 2011. Similarly, gender equality and the role of women
acquire a more prominent role, especially in the peacebuilding and peacekeeping
sectors.
In general terms, in the 2021 Strategy the promotion of good governance
receives much bigger emphasis than in the previous policy initiatives although
lines of action appear conflated with the ones implemented in the 2011-2020
period. Cooperation in the field of governance not only means helping with the
provision of basic public services but also tackling corruption and human rights
violations, including security forces and, therefore, strengthening justice and
accountability mechanisms becomes central81. This provision also envisions the
need to strengthen the multilateral system and working in close collaboration with
the UN –and MINUSMA– and ECOWAS, as well as entangling more normatively
with the dynamics already set by the two EU civilian missions –EUCAP Sahel Niger
and Mali–, EUTM Mali and with the French-led Barkhane Operation. The Strategy
recognizes that regional alliances have grown increasingly important and thus,
the geographical scope of the 2021 Strategy is not limited to G5 Sahel countries
–Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. EU action is to be understood
in a wider context of regional and cross-border challenges including Libya, the
Lake Chad Basin and the gulf of Guinea without overlooking some dynamics from
Eastern African countries.
The 2021 EU Sahel Strategy is set to be “an ambitious, inclusive and flexi-
ble strategy anchored on the principle of accountability”82. However, under this
conceptualisation G5 Sahel States hold the primary responsibility for regional
stabilisation. Supposedly, this establishes a framework of mutual accountability in
which EU action is part “of a partnership based on each partner’s responsibility to
fulfil its commitments”83. However, in practice, the 2021 Strategy is an exercise of
78 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
79 Council of the European Union. 2021b, op cit.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
32 UndERStAndInG thE EvoLUtIon oF thE EU’S StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL REGIon
limiting responsibility through the concept of mutual accountability. It establishes
the weight of regional stability on the political will of local governments while at
the same time being co-owners of gains and failures. Under the 2021 Strategy, the
EU highlights the need to achieve tangible results as soon as possible to address
the immediate and root causes of insecurity and instability and respecting human
rights and gender equality84. However, since the outbreak of the crisis in Mali in
January 2012, as well as the so-called migration crisis that affected Europe espe-
cially in 2015, it has been manifest that the securitarian situation in the Sahel
has been prioritised on the European agenda. Since the deployment of European
assistance programs in the Sahel, it has not been possible to establish far-reaching
institutional reforms nor to reduce significantly armed violence, which continues
on a dangerous upward trend, with local security forces as protagonists85. Despite
the strategic effort undertaken in 2021 to imbue the EU’s role in the region with
political nuance, the reality is that since the coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Burkina
Faso (2022) and the most recent coup in Niger in July 2023, the EU Sahel Strategy
as a whole is at a strategic crossroads. All the more so given the withdrawal of
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso from the G5 Sahel and ECOWAS, which completely
redraws the region’s institutional framework. Moreover, following the arrival of
the Wagner Group as new security partner in the region, a thorough and strate-
gic reassessment of both the general approach and the security dimension of the
EU’s involvement in the Sahel are needed. Violence continues to increase while
European security forces continue to shrink. This on the one hand could imply a
much-needed re-articulation and thorough reconsideration of priorities and actions
that are imperative for shaping the future course of EU strategy in the Sahel, but on
the other hand, it already has proven to have negative effects on the use of force
and respect for human rights by local security forces. Since 2020, battles and attacks
have spread to new locations in northern Mali through joint military operations
between the Malian armed forces and the Wagner Group86. In addition, hostilities
have resumed with the armed groups that signed the Algiers Agreement in 2015.
Under this context, violence against civilians has increased by 38 per cent in Mali in
2023 with the main perpetrators of these attacks being JNIM (more than 180 events,
33%), Malian state forces and/or the Wagner Group (almost 160 events, 29%), and
IS Sahel (almost 90 events, 15%).87
84 Ibid.
85 Nsaibia, Héni. 2023, op cit.
86 Serwat, Ladd et al. 2023. “Moving out of the Shadows: Shifts in Wagner Group
Operations Around the World”. ACLED. 33-40. https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/
uploads/2023/08/ACLED_Report_Shifts-in-Wagner-Group-Operations-Around-the-World_2023.
pdf.
87 Nsaibia, Héni. 2023, op cit.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 33
Table 2. Comparative of the three main EU strategies for the Sahel
EU Sahel Strategy 2011 Regional Action Plan
(2015-2020)
EU Sahel Strategy 2021
Context The prevailing instability
in the Sahel underscored
the need for strategic and
comprehensive policies.
Several missions ongoing
(EUCAP, EUTM, MINUSMA,
etc.). Increased interest of
the EU in the area after the
terrorist attacks in Paris and
Brussels, the Brexit, and
the Mediterranean refugee
"crisis".
Considerable military
deployment, development
cooperation and humani-
tarian assistance have not
been enough to break to
cycle of intercommunal
violence, terrorism and
political unrest.
Key changes It embodies the securi-
ty-development nexus.
Strategy conceived as a
preliminary exercise to
establish a precondition
for development.
Update of the 2011 Strate-
gy that includes migration
for the first time. Securi-
ty-centric approach focused
on promoting stability after
2015 (a “pragmatic turn”).
Consolidation of an “in-
tegrated/comprehensive
approach” that distances
from security-centric and
militarised strategies.
Security Strengthen the capaci-
ties of the security, law
enforcement and rule of
law sectors to fight threats
and handle terrorism and
organised crime in a more
efficient and specialised
manner.
Countering radicalization
and organised crime as one
of the key objectives.
"Reinforcing the fight
against terrorism, armed
groups, cross-border
trafficking and organised
crime.
Supporting SSR."
Develop-
ment
To help create economic
opportunities for local
communities and to miti-
gate the impact of climate
change effects. Develop-
mental objectives appear
diffuse and conflated.
"Creating appropriate con-
ditions for youth.
Renewed commitment to
the 2011 objectives"
"Giving a more central
role to the 20230 Agenda
by encouraging ""the
countries of the Sahel in
their efforts to achieve
sustainable and inclusive
development”.
Gender issues gain sali-
ency"
Migration Migration management is
absent.
"Combatting illicit traffick-
ing and organised crime.
Focus on border manage-
ment to tackle irregular
migration."
Continuing to promote
cooperation in the area of
migration.
Governance To enhance transparent
and locally accountable
governance and reestab-
lishing an administrative
presence of the state.
"Facilitating coordination
with local institutions
through a new EU Special
Representative for the
Sahel.
Creating appropriate condi-
tions for youth.
Renewed commitment to
the 2011 objectives."
"Governance receives
bigger emphasis.
Helping in the provision
of public services, tackling
corruption and human
rights violations, strength-
ening justice and account-
ability mechanisms.
Strengthening the multi-
lateral system."
Source: Own elaboration from Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021; Council of the European Union. 2011,
2015, 2021b.
35
Problematising EU strategies in the Sahel
The following section provides an interpretative framework for what we consid-
er to be the four aspects that negatively shape the design of European strategies
in the Sahel. These aspects highlight the problem of a securitised understanding
of extremely complex phenomena, such as the nature of extremist violence, the
phenomenon of migratory flows and the scale and impact of the climate crisis, and
the negative effects of this securitised understanding in the excessive militarisation
of responses (subsections 1 and 2). A third aspect is related to the organisational
dynamics of the EU and the tensions and contradictions that exist between the
different EU actors that contribute to the design and implementation of policies in
the Sahel (mainly the Member States and the Peace and Security Council, the EEAS,
DG INTPA and the EU Delegations on the field). Finally, we analyse the room for
local agency, i.e. the voice and vision of local actors, in the design of these policies,
in particular through the so-called principle of local ownership, where we also find
a significant gap between rhetoric and practice.
SECURITISING VIOLENCE, MIGRATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) as a troubling and damaging frame-
work
The security culture that has characterised governance programs in the Sahel can
be traced back to the spill-over narrative of global jihadi terrorism dominated by
the GWOT doctrine after 9/11. By the time the Malian conflict’s violence escalated
in 2011-2013 and when the calls for combating tuareg rebels against government
forces and also jihadist terrorists were amplified, geopolitical actors had already
pre-established the “counter-terrorism culture” and the potential of the Sahel as a
safe haven for Algerian jihadists of AQIM, the former Salafist Group for Preaching
and Combat (GSPC), and combatants returning from Afghanistan88. Terms like
“arch of instability”89, “Sahelistan”90 and “Africanistan”91 have frequently circulated
88 Malejacq, Romain, and Adam Sandor. 2020. “Sahelistan? Military Intervention and
Patronage Politics in Afghanistan and Mali.” Civil Wars 22 (4): 543–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/1
3698249.2020.1813405; Lewis, Aidan. 2013. “Why the Sahara Is Not the ‘New Afghanistan.’” BBC
News, February 1, 2013, sec. Africa. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-21299153; Graham,
Franklin Charles. 2011. “Abductions, Kidnappings and Killings in the Sahel and Sahara.” Review of
African Political Economy 38 (130): 587–604. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23145864.
89 United Nations Security Council. 2013. “Arc of Instability’ across Africa, If Left Unchecked,
Could Turn Continent into Launch Pad for Larger-Scale Terrorist Attacks, Security Council Told | UN Press.”
UNSC Department of Public Information. May 2013. https://press.un.org/en/2013/sc11004.doc.htm.
90 Laurent, Samuel. 2013. Sahelistan. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
91 Michailof, Serge. 2016. “Africanistan: Is the Sahel on the Road to Becoming Another
Afghanistan?” Horizons: Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development, no. 6:
174–87. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48573622.
36 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
in an unproblematic and apolitical manner before and after 2011, serving as broad
descriptors for the conditions and context in which international partners operate.
However, GWOT terminology continues to fall short in providing a nuanced under-
standing of the escalating phenomenon of Islamist violence within the region. As
one interviewee put it, the GWOT framework ends up being a real “burden” because
it turns violence, which is complex in nature and locally expressed, into an “exis-
tential threat” for Europe, leading it to construct exceptional measures that, above
all, do not capture the real nature of the violence.92 Critical literature has pointed
out that this narrative is a serious oversimplification, since jihadism in the Sahel
has local roots that are also linked to historical and socio-economic factors.93, 94 It
is also important not to depoliticise and de-agengize all these actors, but rather to
understand them as rational players with agendas deeply rooted in their local needs
and visions.
The simplification inherent in the terminology of “terrorism” after 9/11 over-
looks the intricate dynamics at play, hindering a comprehensive analysis of the
complexities associated with security challenges in the Sahel and thus, formulating
policies and strategies that cannot move beyond simplistic labels that limit policy
options to more kinetic responses. The PSI, the TSCTI and the fixation on Al Qaeda,
capacity-building and SSR on the 2011 EU Sahel Strategy are clear indications of
this cognitive structure. Delving into a more detailed examination of the multifac-
eted factors contributing to the intensification of Islamist violence, influence and
governance capabilities of violent organisations in the Sahel is necessary in order
to understand the saliency and operational and political “success” that such groups
are increasingly experiencing.
The need to contextualise Sahelian migration
Europe’s attention to migration dynamics in the Sahel is not a recent develop-
ment but has undergone intensified scrutiny95. The initial escalation occurred in
2011, prompted by the regional security crisis emanating from central Mali and
further amplified after 2015 when Europe confronted a notable surge in arrivals
through the Mediterranean. However, during the period spanning from 2016 to
2022, there was a substantial reduction in migration towards Europe through the
Mediterranean96. This decline coincided with an increasing prevalence of strin-
gent measures against migration and a parallel emphasis on capacity-building in
92 Interview CE3.
93 Interview A5.
94 Mesa, Beatriz. 2022. “Los grupos armados del Sahel. Conflicto y economía criminal en el
norte de Mali”. Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata.
95 European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External
Borders of the Member States of the European Union. 2014. “Handbook to the Operational Plan
Joint Maritime Operations • European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at
the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union.” https://www.statewatch.org/
media/documents/news/2017/feb/eu-frontex-handbook-joint-maritime-operations-censored.pdf.
96 International Organization for Migration. 2023. “Migration Flow to Europe. Arrivals”.
Global Data Institute. Displacement Tracking Matrix. https://dtm.iom.int/europe/arrivals.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 37
border control within both origin and transit countries97. Notably, deportations
from Algeria and Libya to the Sahel escalated from 2016 onward, compelling
certain individuals to opt for riskier routes to Europe98. The EU’s approach to
managing migration in and around the Sahel primarily adheres to a route-centric
perspective, aiming to impede northbound mobility by intertwining security and
migration policies. The prevailing discourse in Europe, conflating migrants with
terrorism, reinforces a punitive approach despite a lack of concrete statistical evi-
dence99. In contrast, there is a growing acknowledgment within the ageing popu-
lation of the EU about the critical need for labour and the overly militarised stance
on migration, clearly showing that punishing mobility in the Sahel responds to
the disproportionately influential role that biassed migration narratives play in
politics100.
This has led to the establishment of a counterproductive EU framework for
regulating migration in the Sahel, a framework that seems incongruent with the
relatively modest numbers of migrants when compared to the broader scope of
displacement within the region101. As complexities in potential partnerships with
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger arise, there is an imperative for a renewed strategy
that shifts focus towards displacement and advocates for area-based approaches.
What climate change story for the Sahel?
Climate narratives around concepts like desertification and land degradation con-
tinue to act as powerful catalysts for stigmatising Sahelian dynamics and contribute
to assembling security-based knowledge frameworks around the region, increasing-
ly correlating episodes of intercommunal and jihadist violence with environmental
factors. However, while many empirical studies stress that the Sahel is greening,
others indicate no trend or browning102. The idea that the desert is spreading in the
Sahel, either due to climate aridification or to local land-use practices exists since
97 Fakhry, Alia. 2023. “More than Borders: Effects of EU Interventions on Migration in the
Sahel.” Institute for Security Studies, West Africa Report, 43 . https://issafrica.org/research/west-
africa-report/more-than-borders-effects-of-eu-interventions-on-migration-in-the-sahel.
98 Ibid.
99 According to the EUROPOL report on terrorist trends 2023, in the EU, in 2022, sixteen
attacks were completed, most of which were attributed to left-wing and anarchist terrorism
(13), two to jihadist terrorism and one to right-wing terrorism. In 2022, four fatalities were
recorded, two as a result of jihadist terrorist attacks and two as a result of a right-wing terrorist
attack.
Europol. 2023. “European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report.” Luxemburg:
Publications Office of the European Union. https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/
files/documents/European%20Union%20Terrorism%20Situation%20and%20Trend%20
report%202023.pdf.
100 Bello, Valeria. 2021. “The Spiral of Prejudice and the Securitization of Migration: The
Complexity of Small Changes in the Italian Migration Networked Governance.” Italian Political
Science 16 (2): 58–73. https://italianpoliticalscience.com/index.php/ips/article/view/170/122.
101 Interview A3.
102 Mbow, Cheikh, Martin Brandt, Issa Ouedraogo, Jan de Leeuw, and Michael Marshall.
2015. “What Four Decades of Earth Observation Tell Us about Land Degradation in the Sahel?”
Remote Sensing 7 (4): 4048–67. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs70404048.
38 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
the early periods of colonial Africa103. This has made assessing land degradation
and quantifying its effects on land productivity both a scientific and political chal-
lenge, with little political agreement gained on the magnitude and direction of land
degradation in the Sahel104. Climate change associated with local human impact,
mostly land use change such as expansion of cultivation, agricultural intensifica-
tion, overgrazing and overuse of woody vegetation is increasingly correlated with
the proliferation of armed groups in the Central Sahel, especially among pastoral
communities105. However, studies have found that links between the proliferation
of armed groups and climate change are weak106. While it is true that there has been
a loss in biodiversity and degradation trends can also be observed, there is a clearly
positive trend in biomass production at Sahel scale107.
Figure 4. Land degradation in the Sahel (2000-2020 comparison).
Source: NASA Earth Observatory. 2020. See in: Raineri, Luca. 2020. “SAHEL CLIMATE CONFLICTS?: hen (Fight-
ing) Climate Change Fuels Terrorism.” European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).
http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep28786.
Factors like foreign military interventions, religious claims, and the marginalisation
of pastoralist communities are deemed more important by researchers and local
103 Benjaminsen, Tor A., and Pierre Hiernaux. 2019. “From Desiccation to Global Climate
Change: A History of the Desertification Narrative in the West African Sahel, 1900–2018.” Global
Environment 12 (1): 206–36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26726508.
104 Gangneron, Fabrice, Caroline Pierre, Elodie Robert, Laurent Kergoat, Manuela Grippa,
Françoise Guichard, Pierre Hiernaux, and Crystele Leauthaud. 2022. “Persistence and Success of the
Sahel Desertification Narrative.” Regional Environmental Change 22 (4). https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10113-022-01969-1.
105 Mbow at al. 2015, op cit.
106 Benjaminsen, Tor A. 2008. “Does Supply-Induced Scarcity Drive Violent Conflicts in
the African Sahel? The Case of the Tuareg Rebellion in Northern Mali.” Journal of Peace Research
45 (6): 819–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343308096158; Benjaminsen, Tor A, Koffi Alinon,
Halvard Buhaug, and Jill Tove Buseth. 2012. “Does Climate Change Drive Land-Use Conflicts in
the Sahel?” Journal of Peace Research 49 (1): 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343311427343;
Benjaminsen, Tor A., and Boubacar Ba. 2018. “Why Do Pastoralists in Mali Join Jihadist Groups?
A Political Ecological Explanation.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (1): 1–20. https://doi.org/1
0.1080/03066150.2018.1474457.
107 Mbow et al. 2015, op cit.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 39
experts than climate alterations108. In fact, scientists argue that the substantial
expansion of agricultural activities has adversely affected the nomadic lifestyle of
herders and the mobility of their livestock, disrupting their access to crucial pas-
tures109. This obstruction arises from the encroachment of rice cultivation onto tra-
ditional livestock corridors, particularly impacting burgu110 pastures111. The impedi-
ment of these corridors poses a significant challenge to the sustainable coexistence
of agricultural and pastoral practices, necessitating a careful policy approach to bal-
ance the interests of both sectors and ensure the preservation of vital grazing lands.
Although more closely aligned with natural resources governance than immediate
security concerns, the discussions surrounding ecology within the context of the
EU Sahel Strategies often underscore the integration of climate considerations into
EU policies in the Sahel. While climate-related violence is widely assumed, cli-
mate-related policies have yet to be formally integrated into the mandates of any
of the EU’s CSDP missions. Despite recognizing the security implications of climate
dynamics, the incorporation of climate security and resilience measures remains
only partially realised within the broader framework of the EU’s involvement in
the Sahel. A comprehensive reassessment of climate change in the Sahel and further
integration of climate-related considerations is imperative to align strategic objec-
tives with enhancing the effectiveness of EU engagements in the region112.
NEGATIVE AND UNINTENDED EFFECTS OF THE OPERATIONAL APPROACH-
ES OF THE EU STRATEGIES
The over-militarisation of the strategy
While improving governance through a proper delivery of public services requires a
longer-term approach, when faced with populations conceived of as vulnerable or
threatening, policymakers and security professionals often conclude that there is a
108 Cepero, Oriol, Sophie Desmidt, Adrien Detges, Fabien Tondel, Pia Ackern, Adrian
Foong, and Jan Volkholz. 2021. “Climate Change, Development and Security in the Central
Sahel.” Cascades report. https://www.cascades.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Climate-Change-
Development-and-Security-in-the-Central-Sahel.pdf.
109 Ibid.,p.14.
110 Historically, the transhumance movements in the Inner Niger Delta have been dictated
by the increase and decrease of floodwaters, drawing as much as 40% of Mali’s cattle annually for
seasonal migration, including contributions from neighbouring countries. The alluvial flood plains
within the Inner Niger Delta play a crucial role, hosting a nutritious aquatic grass known as bour-
goutière (burgu or Echinochloa stagnina). These flood plains, particularly significant, reveal extensive
expanses of burgu as the River Niger’s flood waters recede at the conclusion of the rainy season,
providing accessible and essential grazing areas for livestock.
111 Interview A2.
112 Joseph, Jonathan, and Ana E. Juncos. 2019. “A Promise Not Fulfilled: The (Non)
Implementation of the Resilience Turn in EU Peacebuilding.” Contemporary Security Policy 41
(2): 287–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2019.1703082; Pérez de las Heras, Beatriz. 2020.
“Climate Security in the European Union’s Foreign Policy: Addressing the Responsibility to Prepare
for Conflict Prevention.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 28 (3): 335–47. https://doi.org
/10.1080/14782804.2020.1731438.
40 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
need to prioritise “security” and to unify political and military efforts113. Although
in the Sahel the need to put people at the heart of assistance is repeated ad nauseum,
the fact is that the primacy of military necessity over more normative requirements
sets the fight in an insurgency and counterinsurgency model of assistance. Despite
the crucial role of politics in facilitating peaceful solutions and the essential nature of
development and social engineering work to maintain military successes that foster
strong civil-military relations, Charbonneau contends that in the Sahel region, the
strengthening of security forces is seen as vital for enabling the practice of politics
in itself114. This strengthening is seen as necessary to facilitate the Sahelian state
formation and the process of nation-building. In this sense, after years of western
stabilisation programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Counter-Insurgency (COIN)
doctrine that has traditionally been associated with military tactics and operations,
has transcended its military origins in the Sahel. Derived from the colonial French
military doctrine115 and influenced by experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan116, COIN
has significantly shaped the framing and structure of political possibilities and
governance practices in the region117. Beyond merely informing military combat
techniques, counter-insurgency has evolved into a distinct form of politics in the
complex landscape of the Sahel118, characterised by what some describe as a “security
traffic jam”119. Global governance structures, transnational elite networks, where we
don’t find just the EU but also African elites, have legitimised the utilisation of force
in the Sahel as a governance tool120. This endorsement is rationalised by emphasising
the essential contribution of the security apparatus to facilitating political process-
es. Charbonneau121 contends that the incorporation of ‘development’ and ‘holistic
approaches’ into ostensibly security-focused strategies serves to legitimise and nor-
malise the application of force. Under this logic, the difficulty to deal with Sahelian
domestic governance and socioeconomic problems has encouraged to concentrate
on assisting on combat operations and capacity-building, often to the neglect of the
113 Tripodi, Christian. 2023. “Hidden hands: The failure of population-centric counterinsur-
gency in Afghanistan 2008-11”, Journal of Strategic Studies:20-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/014023
90.2023.2169673.
114 Charbonneau, Bruno. 2021. “Counterinsurgency governance in the Sahel”. International
Affairs 97 (6): 1805-1823. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab182.
115 Shurkin, Michael. 2014. “France’s War in Mali: Lessons for an Expeditionary Army.” Rand
Corporation. October 17, 2014. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR770.html.
116 Petraeus, General David H. , and Lt. General James F. Amos. 2007. “The U.S. Army/Marine
Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.” The University of Chicago Press. http://ndl.ethernet.edu.
et/bitstream/123456789/50585/1/290.pdf.
117 Charbonneau, Bruno. 2022. “The Climate of Counterinsurgency and the Future of
Security in the Sahel.” Environmental Science & Policy, 138 (December): 97–104. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.09.021.
118 Ibid.
119 Cold-Ravnkilde, Signe Marie, and Katja Lindskov Jacobsen. 2020. “Disentangling
the Security Traffic Jam in the Sahel: Constitutive Effects of Contemporary Interventionism.”
International Affairs 96 (4): 855–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaa093.
120 Charbonneau. 2022, op cit.
121 Ibid.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 41
non combat side of a proper COIN approach that is not just about combat skills to
restore peace by force but also the restoration of community trust in government122.
The central role of security forces in political life in the Sahel has been strength-
ened by the weight (and increased lethality123) given to capacity building and SSR
missions. Scholars note that while the premises of civilian oversight and accounta-
bility most often are part of EUTM and EUCAP, such principles have little resonance
in a context where state officials are incapable or unwilling of providing a demo-
cratic framework to implement oversight and promote accountability124. In Mali,
Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad, the military has historically been closely intertwined
with politics. In this sense, with the progressive deterioration of the security of civil
society125 in the region and after a decade of militarised assistance, the preexisting
profound imbalances in civil-military relations and the recent coups have raised
questions regarding security force assistance to fragile states more broadly126. An
approach to governance rooted in COIN, although prioritising the population, is
still subordinate to military imperatives, as conceptually its ultimate raison d’être is
to support military and security efforts. Consequently, the local armed forces, given
their pivotal role in external backing, have emerged as principal participants in the
political process. This dynamic has contributed to the militarization of politics in
the Sahel and the resurgence of more authoritarian methodologies of governance
in the region.
Similarly, there is a sense that the capacity to evaluate and rethink the instru-
ments of intervention is very limited. Although the 2021 strategy indirectly
acknowledges the problems of the over-militarised approach by broadening the
understanding of the idea of governance127, the proposal as a whole comes in a
much more volatile context than when the first strategy was proposed in 2011 and
thus forces a rethink of much more fundamental elements. As we will see later in
understanding institutional dynamics, there is also a sense that technicians and
experts, especially within the EEAS, are fully aware of the “conflict sensitivity”
approaches that have been developed over the last 25 years through an extensive
literature that has used the principle of “Do No Harm” (DNH) as the main vector
guiding any external presence. In practice, however, these frameworks end up
neutralised by dynamics that do not take into account the negative impacts and
damages that external presence can cause. For one interviewee, the EUTM is a clear
example. The mission has ended up supporting security reform processes in troops
that are perceived as illegitimate by certain sectors of society, thus contributing to
122 Galula, David. 1964. “Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice”. London and
New York: Frederick A. Preager. https://indianstrategicknowledgeonline.com/web/Galula%20
David%20-%20Counterinsurgency%20Warfare.pdf.
123 COUNCIL DECISION (CFSP) 2021/509 of 22 March 2021 Establishing a European Peace
Facility, and Repealing Decision (CFSP) 2015/528. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/
PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021D0509.
124 Wilén, Nina. 2021. “Civil-Military Imbalance in the Sahel.” Egmont Royal Institute for
International Relations, 2021. https://www.egmontinstitute.be/civil-military-imbalance-in-the-
sahel/.
125 Interview CE1 & CE2.
126 Ibid.
127 Interview LEO.
42 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
the exacerbation of grievances between groups and, in turn, mistrust of European
institutions.128
The over-dimensioning of migration-related policies
The Sahel is a strategic region for migration inasmuch as it represents a transit route
for intercontinental migrations from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. However, its
relevance is not only due to its geographical proximity to Europe but also because
of the internal mobility dynamics. Given that 80% of African migrations occur
within the continent, migration within the Sahel is equally or even more relevant
than northbound routes129. The enormous levels of violence and accumulated soci-
oeconomic challenges have led to massive forced displacements, being particularly
high the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees in several
Sahelian states130. In front of this migratory challenge, the European approach has
been overly militarised and has often over-emphasized the importance of migration
control in its policy priorities.
Figure 5. Refugees and IDPs in the Sahel G5 countries (by country of asylum)
Source: Own elaboration from UNHCR. 2023.
Despite the attention that migration enjoys nowadays, it would not be until the 2011
security crisis in central Mali and the upstick in irregular migration in 2015 in the
so-called refugee “crisis” and the subsequent Valletta Process that migration control
would become such a crucial endeavour for the EU. Since then, the EU has adopted a
strategy of border externalisation that entails building capacities in transit neighbour-
ing countries –understanding the European neighbourhood in a maximalist way– in
128 Interview A5.
129 International Organization for Migration. 2017. “African migration to Europe: How can
adequate data help improve evidence-based policymaking and reduce possible misconceptions?”.
IOM Global Migration Data Analysis Centre. Issue No. 11, November 2017. https://publications.
iom.int/system/files/pdf/gmdac_data_briefing_series_issue_11.pdf.
130 According to the latest UNHCR update on the Sahel Crisis (31 January 2024) the number
of IDPs is approximately 3,005,700 people while the number of refugees and asylum-seekers is
1,060,169 people. For further information see: UNHCR. 2024. “R4 SAHEL Coordination Platform
for forced displacements in the Sahel”. https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/sahelcrisis.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 43
order to stop migratory flows away from European soil. In this sense, Sahelian coun-
tries are key components in Europe’s migration externalisation strategy.
The case of Niger’s city Agadez embodies this strategy. Until the 2015 “crisis”
Agadez was Niger’s migratory transit hub. In accordance with some sources: “Despite
most refugees and migrants reaching Europe are from countries other than Niger,
in 2014 more than half of all migrants who arrived in Lampedusa, Italy, passed
through […] Agadez”131. However, the hardening of European migration policies
through the Action Plan against Migrant Smuggling (2015-2020) drastically curved
the arrivals through the Central Mediterranean route. This generated economic dis-
ruptions in Agadez and elsewhere, and as Moretti holds, “where transit migration
has been one of the main sources of income and a factor of stability since the end
of the Tuareg rebellions in 2009”132. This is an example of negative unintended
consequences that have been disregarded when curving migration towards Europe.
In this sense, policies addressed at limiting migration “may also increase domestic
tensions in politically fragile and administratively weak states, leading to increased
pressure on political and social systems that already are struggling to stay afloat”133.
All in all, the securitization of migration has also been a feature of the pragmatic
turn in EU foreign policy. It is important to note that when it comes to migration
management, the EU has prioritised border control at the expense of the interest
of local populations134, 135. Likewise, since the EU considers its partnerships with
Sahelian countries pivotal as means of limiting migration, reluctance has prevailed
when leveraging to attach strict governance and rule of law to foreign aid funding136.
The EU has failed to understand migration in the Sahel as an inherent phenom-
enon and as an important source of livelihoods in the region137. By focusing on the
prevention of migratory flows towards Europe, the EU has not only failed to capture
the facts of life on the ground but also, by promoting this militarised approach, it
has continually ignored the needs and rights of hundreds of thousands of IDPs.
Regional migration is the most common type of migration in the Sahel, and its
analysis from an Eurocentric perspective that understands it as a security challenge
continues to ignore crucial non-security dimensions of human mobility.
On the other hand, when looking at the broader regional migratory dynamics,
the EU misinterprets migration assuming that people leaving North Africa’s shores
transit first through Sahelian countries. However, many irregular migrants use sea
routes towards Europe to escape violence, abduction and extortion in other transit
countries like Libya. In this sense, it has already been argued elsewhere that “by
131 Horváth, Sarah, and Schwab, Regine. 2023. “The Externalization of EU Borders: The Case
of Agadez”. PRIF Blog. https://blog.prif.org/2023/03/28/the-externalization-of-eu-borders-the-case-
of-agadez/.
132 Moretti, Sébastien. 2020. “Transition Migration in Niger. Stemming the Flows of
Migrants, but at What Cost?” Migration and Society: Advances in Research, 3, 1-9. DOI: 10.3167/
arms.2020.111406.
133 Bøås, Morten. 2020. “EU migration management in the Sahel: unintended consequences on
the ground in Niger?” Third World Quarterly, 41(1), 52-67. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2020.1784002.
134 Ioannides. 2020, op cit.
135 Jayasundara-Smits. 2018, op cit.
136 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
137 Fakhry. 2023, op cit.
44 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
targeting Niger [and the Sahel countries] as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of migration
cooperation instead of Libya, EU-sponsored counter-smuggling policies may not
achieve their goal of stopping transit migrants”138.
Figure 6. EU initiatives addressing security and migration interests, 2016-2022
Source: Fakhry. 2023, p.7.
The management of migration has gained excessive attention from European
policymakers. Figure 6 shows the plethora of initiatives on security and migration
in the Sahel as well as in other West African countries. The amount of initiatives
developed responds to a sense of urgency to tackle a migration “crisis” that has
fostered a decoupling from EU normative principles in favour of a more pragmatic
approach139. Besides reducing the number of migrants that have arrived to Europe
through the Mediterranean route after 2015, EU policies have “encouraged secu-
ritised policies that reinforce security interests of governments in the Sahel and
undermine the capacity of regional and continental organisations to establish
comprehensive migration frameworks”140. Hence, while the European approach
to migration in the Sahel has conflated security and migration policies, and made
138 Ibid.
139 Jayasundara-Smits. 2018, op cit.
140 Fakhry. 2023, op cit.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 45
them a top priority, it has developed a route-based strategy aimed at halting north-
bound mobility.
Following this conception, EUCAP Sahel Niger’s mandate was expanded in 2016
to embrace the fight against irregular migration141 , this becoming one of the five
strategic components of the mission142.
However, it must be noted that this phenomenon is not exclusive of EU mis-
sions in the Sahel, but has become a commonality in different contexts as well143.
For instance, long-term assistance provided through the EU Trust Fund for Africa,
with more than €930 million already mobilised, has been criticised for focusing
too much on the management of migratory flows not only in the Sahel but in all
countries participatory to the Rabat Process144.
The misuse and abuse of climate narratives
The neo-Malthusian narrative around the Sahel’s “unsustainable” demography and
natural resource management is still very much present and is increasingly being
reproduced as one of the axis onto which the international political scene is paying
utmost attention145. The idea that human population growth is the primary driver
of environmental harms and population control a prerequisite to environmental
protection, is experiencing a resurgence146. Discourses that alarm of the effects
desertification, land degradation and environmental fragility have in fostering
violent conflict and displacement have led foreign and maximalist interpretations
to assemble a Sahelian landscape in which external and securitarian intervention
is prioritised147.
141 Council of the European Union. 2016. “EUCAP Sahel Niger: mission extended, budget
agreed, mandate amended”. Press release, 18 July 2016. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/
press-releases/2016/07/18/fac-sahel-niger/.
142 European External Action Service. 2016. “The EUCAP Sahel Niger civilian mission”.
Common Security and Defence Policy. https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/csdp/missions-and-
operations/eucap-sahel-niger/pdf/factsheet_eucap_sahel_niger_en.pdf.
143 Molnár, Anna and Vecsey, Mariann. 2022. “The EU’s Missions and Operations from the
Central Mediterranean to West Africa in the Context of the Migration Crisis”. International Journal
of Euro-Mediterranean Studies, 15(1): 55-82. https://emuni.si/ISSN/2232-6022/15.55-82.pdf.
144 Ioannides. 2020, op cit.
145 Torres, Laura. 2019. “The demographic explosion in the Sahel region: its governance’s
new challenge”. Opinion Paper IEEE 61/2019. https://www.ieee.es/Galerias/fichero/docs_opi-
nion/2019/DIEEEO61_2019LAUTOR_demografia_ENG.pdf.
146 Merchant, Emily Klancher. 2022. “Environmental Malthusianism and demography”.
Social studies of science, 52(4): 536–560. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221104929.
147 Raineri, Luca. 2020. “SAHEL CLIMATE CONFLICTS?: When (Fighting) Climate Change
Fuels Terrorism.” European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), 2020. http://www.jstor.
org/stable/resrep28786.
46 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
In the 2021 Strategy “combating desertification” is one of the core develop-
mental goals148. Within climate narratives, “the desertification narrative promotes
a control-oriented response”149 and is used to justify political and legal changes
based on the assumptions of damaging local practices of land exploitation150. In
this sense, a regional desertification narrative is useful as it establishes a region-wide
reality that favours region-wide intervention. This adds to the seductive idea that
terrorism and climate change are interlinked, both for international policies and
Sahelian state leaders151.
The climate-desertification-conflict nexus of the EU Strategy establishes a
framework to “combat climate change, conscious of its direct consequences for
populations, including in terms of security”152. This has translated Western anxi-
eties, mostly about climate migrants coming from the Sahel to drive away policy
attention from mitigation and move it towards migration and border control153.
It is imperative to avoid oversimplifying climate narratives and practices in
policy discussions by recognizing that security challenges related to climate and
ecology are intricate and rooted in complex socio-political factors. Despite the
growing acknowledgment of the interconnected nature of climate change and
security issues, a compartmentalised approach not only persists within the EU but
also in other multilateral bodies. Departments responsible for climate change adap-
tation, (human) development and security often operate in silos, posing the risk of
incoherent regional policies154, 155.
For example, the G5 Sahel’s Security and Development Strategy156 outlines
interventions on pastoralism, food security, climate change adaptation, and social
cohesion aimed at combating insecurity. However, practical implementation reveals
limited coordination among the G5 Sahel’s governance, security and resilience
departments. While some interventions, such as the Collège Sahélien de Sécurité
(CSS), incorporate a climate focus through training on “environmental infringe-
148 Pichon and Betant-Rasmussen. 2021, op cit.
149 Scoones, Ian, Andrew Stirling, Dinesh Abrol, Joanes Atela, Lakshmi Charli-Joseph, Hallie
Eakin, Adrian Ely, et al. 2020. “Transformations to Sustainability: Combining Structural, Systemic
and Enabling Approaches.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 42 (1): 65–75. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.12.004.
150 Davis, Diana K. 2005. “Indigenous Knowledge and the Desertification Debate:
Problematising Expert Knowledge in North Africa.” Geoforum 36 (4): 509–24. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2004.08.003.
151 Raineri. 2020, op cit.
152 Council of the European Union . 2021b, op cit.
153 Ribot, Jesse, Papa Faye, and Matthew D. Turner. 2020. “Climate of Anxiety in the Sahel:
Emigration in Xenophobic Times.” Public Culture 32 (1): 45–75. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-
7816293.
154 Salzinger, Maëlle, and Sophie Desmidt. 2023. “Seven Ways to Support Resilience and
Crisis Responses in the Central Sahel - Mali | ReliefWeb.” The Centre for Africa-Europe Relations.
March 30, 2023. https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/seven-ways-support-resilience-and-crisis-respon-
ses-central-sahel.
155 Interview PLO3.
156 G5 Secretariat Permanent. 2016. “Strategie Pour Le Development et La Securité Des Pays
Du G5 Sahel”. https://www.g5sahel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/images_Docs_SDS_G5S_
VF.pdf.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 47
ments,” these efforts remain relatively small-scale157. Major security interventions,
like the G5 Sahel Joint Force, primarily adopt military responses and do not appear
to integrate climate-related security risks. Similarly, within CSDP operations, the
climate dimension is more related to the carbon footprint of the mission than to
climate-violence links158. Notably, energy security is conspicuously absent on all EU
Sahel Strategies, with no projects in the RAP 2015-2020 addressing the role of local
energy production in desertification159.
Figure 7. The interplay between harmful narratives of violence, migration
and climate change in the Sahel
Source: Own elaboration
The multifaceted impacts of climate change on social, economic, security, develop-
ment and political dynamics, spanning local to global scales, necessitate a reeval-
uation of the functioning of multilateral actors. Despite policy inconsistencies,
there is a general consensus that climate change is a transnational phenomenon,
offering a less sensitive and contested sector where cooperation is potentially more
feasible than in other security domains. Given the escalating tension in traditional
security sectors between the EU and its Sahelian counterparts, engaging in shared
discussions about climate issues can enhance communication among multilateral
157 Salzinger and Desmidt. 2023, op cit.
158 Interview A4.
159 Council of the European Union. 2015, op cit.
48 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
institutions and local and national actors. Existing efforts to promote knowledge
sharing, joint analysis, and combined evaluations on climate security should be
further supported in this regard.
INSTITUTIONAL DYNAMICS: INTERNAL TENSIONS AND POWER DYNAMICS
SHAPING A DIFFUSE AND INCONSISTENT IMAGE
Another aspect that needs to be examined concerns the institutional dynamics
within the EU. It is imperative to understand that despite the outward appearance
of unity, the EU should not be perceived as a monolithic entity, but rather as a
multifaceted amalgamation of perspectives and power dynamics. The extent to
which it is able to articulate a coherent standpoint has a significant impact on its
credibility as an institution.
In the Sahel context, this analysis is relevant because the challenges of under-
standing, simplifying narratives and formulating concrete strategies and policies
do not arise from a single authoritative voice dictating the path to be followed.
Rather, they arise from the complex interplay between different entities within the
EU, such as the European External Action Service (EEAS) or the Directorate-General
for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), and Member States (MS) resolving their
differences in forums such as the Peace and Security Council. Within the para-
digm of the pragmatic or geostrategic shift pursued by the last two Commissions
to strengthen the EU’s global role, the issue of security in the Sahel has become
paramount.
The interviews conducted for this report reveal, as already indicated, the pres-
ence within this institutional framework of actors with a nuanced and sophisticated
perspective on the potential implications of the security concept. Nevertheless,
the influence of member states in shaping Common Security and Defence Policy
(CSDP) missions remains crucial. A pragmatic outlook, rooted in the defence of
national interests and underpinned by a desire to enhance the EU’s geopolitical
standing in an increasingly competitive global landscape, significantly shapes the
trajectory of European strategies in the Sahel. To mitigate this bias, some argue
for a supranational transformation of the CSDP, divorced from the whims of indi-
vidual member states.160 Alternatively, some highlight the fragmentation of the
instruments used161, the lack of sustainable funding and the limited effectiveness of
micro-projects implemented at national level as inherent technical challenges that
have a profound impact on the strategy as a whole162.
Numerous internal dynamics of considerable importance underline the exist-
ence of tensions and contradictions inherent in the formulation of any strategy.
First and foremost, these dynamics unfold within the framework of the Peace and
Security Council, where member states - especially France - exert decisive influence
and thus shape the overarching securitarian orientation of Sahel policy. However,
tensions with the French position are well documented. For some member states,
160 Interview A4.
161 Interview A3.
162 Interview PO1.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 49
the need to decouple European Sahel strategy from French foreign policy and influ-
ence, a pressing concern since 2014 and 2015,163 stands out as a key challenge in
this new phase. At the same time, the European External Action Service (EEAS) is
seeking to counter this predominantly securitarian imprint by adopting a more ana-
lytical approach to local realities. Second, another key internal dynamic concerns
the relationship between the EEAS and the Directorate-General for International
Partnerships (DG INTPA), which is characterised by the need for coordination and
complementarity, but also by a dynamic of tension and competition between the
two entities164 - a phenomenon common to many organisations and which leads
to communication challenges within the EEAS between the units responsible for
Africa and the Middle East.165 Finally, there is a third dimension between Brussels
and the EU delegations in the Sahel countries. In principle, these delegations have a
perspective more in tune with local dynamics, but it is often the visions of member
states that ultimately dictate policy direction.166
The interviews highlight an important debate about the effectiveness of dele-
gations. According to many, their understanding of local realities often lacks depth
and rootedness, serving primarily organisational interests and hindering their per-
ception by local populations as accessible actors.167 In addition, many delegations
are plagued by excessive bureaucracy, which prevents them from gathering authen-
tic information. Their interactions with the population tend to be limited, confined
to official channels, and focused on maintaining relations with local government
elites while meeting their demands.168
Together, these factors contribute to a confusing and inconsistent local percep-
tion of the EU, often described as ‘opaque’,169 making its operations and coherence
as a single entity difficult for many local actors to understand. Moreover, the prolif-
eration of roles such as Special Representative and Regional Advisory Coordination
within the complex Sahel landscape further reinforces the perception of the EU as
a diffuse actor in a metaphorical ‘traffic jam’.170
These institutional challenges are a growing obstacle to international peace
and security operations, in particular because of their intrusive nature, top-down
approach, and lack of local ownership and participation in strategy formulation
and implementation. The Sahel is no exception to this dynamic. This has been
exacerbated by the increasing range of options available to Sahelian political actors,
marked by the influx of numerous global actors, particularly Russia. Their presence
has contributed to the erosion of long-standing European (and Western) domi-
nance on the African continent, fostering a trend of ‘strategic polygamy’ among
local governments. Moreover, it is imperative to acknowledge that the perception
163 Baldaro, Edoardo and Francesco Strazzari. 2023. “Strategic misalignment: European secu-
rity and P/CVE engagement in the Sahel”. Mediterranean Politics, p.4. https://doi.org/10.1080/136
29395.2023.2289795.
164 Interview PLO1.
165 Interview PLO1.
166 Baldaro and Strazzari. 2023, op cit, p. 6.
167 Interviews PO1, CE1, CE2.
168 Interview PLO1.
169 European Parliament. 2024, op cit.
170 Cold-Ravnkilde and Jacobsen. 2020, op cit.
50 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
of the EU as an actor in the region is further influenced by double standards and
inconsistent positions. This is evident in cases such as the tacit support for a covert
coup in Chad, while condemning and supporting sanctions against neighbouring
Sahelian regimes.
LOCAL OWNERSHIP: BETWEEN RHETORIC AND PRACTICE
Over the last decade, policy debates on security and development have often been
characterised by the emphasis put on local ownership, understood as the degree
of control that locals have in the design and implementation of post-conflict
peacebuilding reforms. The principle of “local ownership” is perceived by both
international and local stakeholders as a critical aspect to ensure the sustainability
and legitimacy of peacebuilding reforms.171 With regards to the EU, it has achieved
a particularly strong resonance in its policy rhetoric “because it chimed well with
how the Union portrays its role in the world”172. Indeed, the 2016 Global Strategy
is concerned with facilitating “locally owned agreements”.
One of the main problems associated with this question has to do with the
“polysemic” nature of the term, i.e. what each actor in a context of international
intervention understands or wants to understand about what local ownership really
means.173 Amongst this conceptual conundrum, some authors argue that three con-
ceptual approaches to local ownership have crystallised174. First, a top-down under-
standing by which local ownership is a “buy-in of domestic elites into externally
designed interventions”175. Second, a bottom-up approach that sees ownership as
indigenous authorship of reforms. Finally, a middle-ground approach that calls for
a local-international consensus in which the two levels of intervention are needed
for successful reforms176. Although these three approaches are common in the lit-
erature regarding local ownership, the EU has often favoured a top-down strategy
that results in little local participation beyond local elites. This might also be due to
the obstacles posed by the decision-making mechanisms of CSDP. That is, insofar
as states are the primary actors in the EU foreign policy, they might be less willing
to “localise” security and development strategies as they might lose control of their
resources and human capital.
171 Mateos Martín, Oscar and Andreu Solà-Martín. 2022. “Whose Peace? Grappling with
Local Ownership in Sierra Leone”. Peace and Conflict Studies, 28(2). https://nsuworks.nova.edu/
pcs/vol28/iss2/4/.
172 Ejdus, Filip. 2017. “‘Here is your mission, now own it!’ The rhetoric and practice of local
ownership in EU interventions”. European Security, 26(4): 461-484. https://doi.org/10.1080/09662
839.2017.1333495.
173 Mateos Martín, Oscar. 2012. “La Construcción de paz posbélica: análisis de los debates
críticos a través del caso de Sierra Leona”. Doctoral thesis, dir. Rafael Grasa Hernández. Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=es&user
=BYNTHIMAAAAJ&citation_for_view=BYNTHIMAAAAJ:yFnVuubrUp4C.
174 Donnais, 2009 in Ejdus. 2017, op cit.
175 Ejdus. 2017, op cit.
176 Ibid.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 51
All in all, when these debates are applied to the latest EU Sahel Strategy (2021),
the contradictions easily arise. First, the concept of “local ownership” is only men-
tioned once when stressing that European support to Sahel’s states “cannot be fully
effective unless there is strong ownership on the part of the Sahel authorities and at
local and community level”177. In addition, this approach is clearly centred around
local governmental elites and does suffer from conceptual ambiguity. The need
to engage local actors at all levels of society is frequently referred to, for instance
stressing that “the EU will be careful to tailor its approach to each context, taking
into account the specific needs of populations, decentralised entities and states”,
or highlighting the need to support “processes of decentralisation and increasing
public participation in local decision-making”178, there is no explicit mention about
what this actually means and how these objectives can be achieved. Local owner-
ship, despite its rhetoric importance, is yet again built around an abstract principle
with no clear definition and programmatic guidelines.
In addition, beyond the conceptual ambiguity, local ownership also faces other
challenges. That is, whereas it should envision the interests of the affected popu-
lations by the foreign interventions, the 2021 Sahel Strategy shows no receptivity
to Sahelian interests. The focus remains highly Euro-centric inasmuch as it is very
focused in fighting terrorism and preventing migration from a militarised perspec-
tive –although the Strategy did put some effort in adopting a more comprehensive
and multidimensional approach. This phenomenon is not exclusive for the 2021
Strategy but a recurrent mistake in the Sahelian interventions, and renders coun-
terproductive outcomes. Ignoring the interests of the aid recipients into account
generates a strategy that will be unfruitful as the core problems –both tangible and
perceived– might not be directly addressed and thus instability will prevail.
This incongruency can be exemplified by EUCAP Sahel Mali. Following
Jayasundara-Smits179, “although the planning documents mention involving civil
society in planning, its role is limited to a supporting and contributory actor to the
mission, and it was excluded in terms of subjectivities –ideas, norms and visions”.
Moreover, actors from the North of the country were not involved in the consulta-
tion process, which can be counterproductive because the risk of producing over-
lapping types of security governance emerges: “exclusion of these actors and the
favouring of a top-down model based on EU standards marginalised and reject the
local episteme of security and make local communities passive recipients or subor-
dinates of the external model”180.
Furthermore, the new trends derived from the war in Ukraine show how EU
interests prevail over local ones: local governments perceive the EU as only con-
cerned about the direction of votes on Russian sanctions and see how their claims
have been neglected. Furthermore, African states feel sidelined in the Strategy
since migration is seen as the main priority for Europeans181. In this context, the
EU’s normative stance has been compromised by imposing the European security
agenda above local demands and needs and by pressuring local elites to comply
177 Council of the European Union. 2021, op cit.
178 Ibid.
179 Jayasundara-Smits. 2018, op cit.
180 Ibid.
181 Interview PO1.
52 PRoBLEMAtISInG EU StRAtEGIES In thE SAhEL
with European priorities182. For instance, EUCAP Sahel Mali has drifted towards
supporting migration control and border management, fighting terrorism and
strengthening internal security forces183. In a nutshell, although the rhetoric of local
ownership persists, it is deemed to be applied through a top-down conception of
predetermined intervention designs.
In this sense, it is noticeable the non-existence of pre-planning and after-action
surveys promoted by European organisms in order to draft more concise and effec-
tive policies in the Sahel. Therefore, there is an important disconnection between
European strategies and the realities on the ground which increases due to the
isolation of EU officials –as well as the staff of other international organisations
and agencies– from the societies they are living in. For some interviewees, it is also
important to stress that if local ownership succeeds in taking root, even in an elitist
way, it is also linked to the existence of interlocutors who somehow “understand”
what they have to do or are willing to do because they share some elements of the
same vision, an aspect which, according to some, was represented by the figure of
Bazoum in Niger184. In addition, the need to have a more localised view in the del-
egations is crucial. Although some experts assert that EU delegations have a fairly
good understanding of the local dynamics and are more free than embassies to
criticise states,185 a contrasting common critique is the formation of communities
of foreign workers that live in isolation from host civil societies and thus remain
alienated from locals. In these communities, foreign workers relate almost exclu-
sively to each other and live in isolated areas of capital cities. By doing so, they
create a bubble of experts in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, development and
humanitarian aid, that has been coined as “Peaceland”186, and that isolates them
from local populations.
Although it is difficult to assess up to what extent EU officials and delegations
suffer from this, some EU officials187 have indeed supported the claim that EU del-
egations need to be more engaged and more savvy of the local culture, politics and
dynamics and communicate better this knowledge with Brussels to ensure that the
flow of communication is not unidirectional and better policies are designed. In
addition, the engagement of EU officials in delegations with local governments is
often limited inasmuch as the contact depends a lot in the chiefs of delegations,
who are often the only interlocutor with the government188. Others assert that
the interaction of delegations with local populations is limited and frequently cir-
cumscribed to official channels blind beyond short-term needs related to ongoing
European projects189.
In conclusion, “local ownership” has been a standout issue for the EU in the
Sahel Strategy. Although the importance it has received, its conceptual ambi-
182 Jayasundara-Smits. 2018, op cit.
183 Ibid.
184 Interviews A5, CE3.
185 Interview CE3.
186 Autesserre, Séverine (2014). “Peaceland: conflict resolution and the everyday politics of
international intervention”. New York: Cambridge University Press.
187 Interview PO1.
188 Interview CE4.
189 Interview PLO3.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 53
guity has hampered its implementation. As such, the local ownership of the
European strategies has been more a rhetorical device than a practical instrument.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a broad consensus to endorse it and promote a bet-
ter implementation.
***
To sum up this section, and as Figure 8 shows, the EU’s approach to the Sahel suffers
from problematic policy-design dynamics. First, the nexus between security, migra-
tion and climate has been framed in a securitized manner that entails a distanced
policy agenda from scientific evidence. Second, this securitization generates nega-
tive outcomes in terms of a mostly militarised approach. Third, inter-institutional
tensions and contradictions within the EU affect the Union’s policy coherence and
perceived legitimacy. And fourth, local agency is ignored in the practical applica-
tion of European policies. These policy choices need to be understood in the broad-
er competing regional context by which European states and the EU as a whole are
losing influence in the Sahel. Hence, a redesign of the EU strategy is needed to deal
with the new Sahelian realities with more appropriate means.
Figure 8. Problematic policy-design dynamics in a competing regional context
Source: Own elaboration
55
A rethink of the EU’s strategy in the Sahel region
This section reassesses the persistent challenges influencing security aspirations
in the region. Confronted with the imperative to mitigate the overly secu-
ritized approach that has resulted in an enlargement of EU stabilisation and security
aid initiatives in the Sahel, our focus is on reconceptualizing paradigms conducive
to reinterpreting the Sahel’s reality. In this section we underscore the necessity for
a critical and less securitized approach to address the specific dimensions outlined
in the report. Firstly, we emphasise the importance of reinterpreting and incorpo-
rating locally generated knowledge, essential for comprehending genuine dynamics
of the Sahel and fostering stronger ties between Sahelian and European civil soci-
eties. Secondly, we advocate for a reconsideration of the securitization framework
within the security-development nexus, divorced from the Global War on Terror
(GWOT) logic by appropriately addressing the nature of violence, migration pat-
terns, and the escalating impacts of the climate crisis in the Sahel. Lastly, this sec-
tion advocates for the promotion of a “transformative pragmatism” approach over
a “principled pragmatism” one, less intrusive and more transactional, and aimed
at leveraging added value amidst evolving international competition and changing
circumstances.
BEGIN TO CONSIDER CRITICAL LOCAL KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION
One of the core ideas underscored by critical peace and conflict studies, and par-
ticularly by decolonial scholars, is the need to recognise that knowledge produc-
tion is inherently subjective and non-neutral. In this sense, the act of knowledge
production takes on a political dimension in which the actors involved have the
authority to define what constitutes valid knowledge and what does not.190 This is
a profoundly important starting point. Echoing the renowned discourse of Nigerian
author Chimamanda Adichie, dominant tendencies in African contexts have histor-
ically propagated ‘single stories’ rooted in biased and racist constructs that simplify
the understanding of reality. Crucially, these narratives not only shape but also
rationalise the types of responses that are offered.
In the Sahel context, the dominant understanding among external actors has
long favoured a narrative that emphasises the violence of extremist groups as either
irrational or inherently linked to religious fundamentalist identities. Departing from
this interpretive framework, however, numerous analyses - many of which have
been reviewed and debated within the European External Action Service (EEAS)
itself - argue for a more nuanced approach. This approach suggests interpreting
violence, alongside other phenomena such as migration patterns or the impact of
190 Rodríguez-Iglesias, Ana Isabel; Carles Fernández-Torné, Oscar Mateos Martín and Albert
Caramés-Boada. 2023. “What Truth? How Civil Society Organisations Shape the Knowledge
Production of Truth Commissions”. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 17(5): 536-556.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2023.2251951.
56 A REthInk oF thE EU’S StRAtEGy In thE SAhEL REGIon
climate change, through less deterministic and simplistic lenses. Such perspectives
take into account a variety of factors, including historical legacies, socio-economic
structures, grievances and micro-level dynamics. These perspectives reveal the exist-
ence of multiple agendas and motivations, not only among the leadership of armed
groups, but also among the myriad of young people who support and join them.
In order to dismantle these ‘dangerous narratives’, to use Chimamanda Adichie’s
terminology, given their significant influence on the conceptualisation of militarisa-
tion strategies, it is imperative to involve local actors in the process of understanding
local realities. Several interviewees stressed the importance of being wary of civil
society organisations that show compliance or adapt to the frameworks sought by
external actors such as the EU.191 In this context, social movements and organisations
with a critical and transformative view of reality (as evidenced by entities such as the
Coalition Citoyen du Sahel),192 as well as local universities and think tanks, emerge as
crucial. It is important for the EU to adopt a more modest approach in this knowledge
deconstruction endeavour, and to engage with actors who have a more sophisticated
understanding rooted in local worldviews - not with the intention of instrumentalis-
ing them, but rather to genuinely grasp the underlying elements from which it can
derive authentic added value, as will be argued below.
RESHAPING THE CORE ASPECTS OF THE EU STRATEGIES
The previous analysis highlights the need to reconsider the securitization frame-
work within the security-development nexus, divorced from the GWOT logic.
Consequently, this section advocates for this reconsideration by appropriately
addressing the nature of violence, migration patterns, and the escalating impacts of
the climate crisis in the Sahel.
To reshape the securitization framework from the conceptual domain around
violence and militarization one must also start by recognising that the activities
that the EU and its Member States have undertaken in the Sahel for more than a
decade demonstrate the wide-ranging ambitions and commitment of Europe to
improving living and governance conditions in the region. In addition to the CSDP
missions, the Sahel Alliance, by 2022, has championed over 1,300 projects amount-
ing to a substantial €28.77 billion193. Nevertheless, the recurrently praised securi-
ty-development nexus has encountered challenges on the ground, particularly in
the realm of governance. After the Niger coup in July 2023, there was widespread
confusion on how European programs and international strategies in the Sahel had
misinterpreted, and up to a certain point ignored, the socio-political landscape194.
The comprehensive nature of the security-development approach has, more
often than not, recurrently incurred in a dualistic logic of providing development
191 Interview CE1, CE2, PO1.
192 Coalition Citoyenne pour le Sahel/People’s Coalition for the Sahel. See: https://www.
sahelpeoplescoalition.org/.
193 Alliance Sahel. 2023b. “Open Data Dashboard.” 2023. https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/
the-projects/.
194 Interview A5, PLO3, PO1, CE1, CE2 and closed-door seminar (10th November 2023,
CIDOB, Barcelona).
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 57
aid and building state capacity. Under this premise, many of the socio-political
nuances of (re)building the State in Sahelian societies have been ignored, often
sidelining civil society in order to ensure cooperation at the highest levels, espe-
cially in regards to capacity building195. Expert analyses pertaining EUTM Mali
underscore the essentiality of structural reforms for sustaining enduring positive
impacts, asserting that mere capacity-building initiatives may fall short of achieving
lasting benefits196. In 2020, the UN Security Council’s expert group on Mali warned
that capacity-building efforts inadvertently bolstered the technical and financial
resources of unintended beneficiaries197. Over the years, EUTM Mali and EUCAP
Sahel have prioritised capacity building through financial and material support over
structural reforms. Consequently, while training missions have improved the oper-
ational capabilities of the local armed forces198, inasmuch as corruption, impunity
and abuses of rule of law persist in Sahelian governments and particularly security
forces, it will not matter how persistent in time CSDP missions are.
Ultimately, although there is still a need to combat terrorism in the Sahel due
to the increase of militant islamist groups in recent years, a pragmatic security-de-
velopment approach that colludes and supports illegitimate, corrupt and/or auto-
cratic governments that remain disconnected from the needs and realities of their
populations will not solve the structural governance problems that have lasting
consequences for regional political stability and in turn for Europe.
The conclusion of MINUSMA and the expulsion of French troops from Mali,
Niger, and Burkina Faso serve as compelling indicators of military juntas trying to
assert their authority within the region and especially, before their citizenry. These
actions convey potent political messages invoking nationalism and sovereignty,
with strong, and often unproven accusations against EU Member States, namely
France due to its status as former colonial power199. Despite recent tensions between
Sahelian military juntas and their European counterparts and considering the eth-
ical concerns associated with military uprisings and the repercussions it has had in
strategic partnerships, it is pertinent to acknowledge that while the GWOT doctrine
remains influential in the Western approach to the Sahel, there is also a concurrent
great power competition unfolding in the region stemming from China’s pragmatic
195 Schmauder, Anna, Guillaume Sotomayor, and Delina Goxho. n.d. “Strategic Missteps:
Learning from a Failed EU Sahel Strategy.” Italian Institute for International Political Studies.
Accessed May 11, 2023. https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/strategic-missteps-learning-
failed-eu-sahel-strategy-28130.
196 Ibid.
197 United Nations. 2020. “Panel of Experts pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2374
(2017) ConcerningFinal Report of the Panel of Experts Established pursuant to Security Council
Resolution 2374 (2017) on Mali and Renewed pursuant to Resolution 2484 (2019).” Digitallibrary.
un.org, August. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3876820. Extract (p.36): “MINUSMA is aware of
the risk of its air assets in Kidal facilitating the movement of gold to Bamako and has put in place
a formal interdiction with subsequent controls.”.
198 Baudais, Virginie, and Souleymaine Maïga. 2022. “The European Union Training Mission
in Mali: An Assessment.” SIPRI. April 2022. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/
bp_2204_eutm_mali.pdf.
199 Mednick, Sam . 2022. “French Accuse Russian Mercenaries of Staging Burials in Mali.”
AP News. April 22, 2022. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-ouagadougou-burkina-faso-
europe-africa-af0965b3bd459f90c9cf930625aa4590.
58 A REthInk oF thE EU’S StRAtEGy In thE SAhEL REGIon
commercial diplomacy, Russia’s resurgence as a security partner in Africa and the
United States’ relative decline.
In this sense, deciding what to do with European capacity-building and SSR
training in the Sahel is not an easy task200. On one hand, amidst considerable
critique, disengagement means a reduction in the responsibility and exposure of
partner forces. On the other hand, this diminishes any potential leverage they
might have exerted on local forces201. This ambivalent situation has already facil-
itated Russia to intensify collaboration with military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso
and more recently, Niger202. This does not only mean a great loss of leverage for
European interests but also the introduction through the Wagner Group of tactics
of terror and brutality previously not observed by partner forces. These tactics
include torture, summary executions, beheadings, ejection of prisoners from air-
craft and the booby-trapping of corpses203. Despite that over more than a decade
European capacity building and SSR has been criticised in the Sahel for its inability
to help rebalance civil-military relations and organically improve accountability
and abuse against civilians, officers argue that there was in fact some localised pro-
gress in terms of rule of law and accountability, especially through EUCAP Sahel
Niger, with some trials being held for abuses by security forces204. Similarly, despite
its overly militarised approach, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) officials
also concurred that, notwithstanding its imperfections, the ultimate objective of
EUCAP Sahel is more positive than its shortcomings205.
Notwithstanding the critiques regarding the militarization of the EU’s aid in the
Sahel, without the provision of such assistance, if withheld initially, it might have
resulted in a higher incidence of abuses and it could have substantially allowed
non-state armed groups to amplify their control over both the population and the
territory in the first place. There is no straightforward solution to EU security assis-
tance in the Sahel. On the one hand, it has proven to be too militarised. On the
other, the alarming surge of jihadist demands a prioritisation of counter-terrorism.
With this dilemma, European actors will have to persist in undertaking the uncom-
fortable challenge of evaluating the trade-offs between its value-based policies and
its interest-driven approach206.
At the other end of the restructuring of fundamental issues we find migration
and mobility. European migration policies have drawn a lot of criticism and contro-
200 For more information about SSR in the Sahel see: Venturi, Bernardo and Nana Toure.
2020. “The Great Illusion: Security Sector Reform in the Sahel”. The International Spectator, 55(4):
54-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2020.1835326.
201 Wilén. 2021, op cit.
202 Le Cam, Morgane . 2023. “Niger Chooses Russia over Europe.” Le Monde, December 6,
2023. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2023/12/06/niger-chooses-russia-over-
europe_6318064_124.html.
203 Nsaibia. 2023, op cit.
204 Interview PLO1.
205 Interview CE1 & CE2.
206 Murphy, Theodore, and Ameer Chughtai. 2023. “A Necessary Trade-Off: Why the EU
Needs to Cooperate with Niger’s Post-Coup Government on Counter-Terrorism.” European Council
on Foreign Relations, September 11, 2023. https://ecfr.eu/article/a-necessary-trade-off-why-the-eu-
needs-to-cooperate-with-nigers-post-coup-government-on-counter-terrorism/.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 59
versy. In fact, since they were put into place, the Sahel has seen a rise in insecurity
and instability, increased disruptions to livelihoods and an increase in the com-
plexity of migratory and smuggling routes and a breakdown in the social contract
between the population and states207. European migration policies in the Sahel and
elsewhere have reduced the amount of migrants reaching Europe. Nevertheless,
this approach’s sustainability needs to be put under review as it might have fueled
domestic tensions in politically fragile and administratively weak states208.
Resizing core issues requires revising the excessively militarised and securitized
approach to migration and the general misinterpretation of mobility dynamics
in the Sahel. First, a new EU strategy should focus on displacement as primarily
“European investments in countering irregular migration have excluded the pro-
tracted displacement crisis unfolding in the Sahel”209. Focusing on displacement
is crucial to tackle the succession of humanitarian, governance and security crises
that have hit the region. Moreover, recognizing the challenges posed by forced
displacement within and across borders in the Sahel serves to unearth the flawed
protection and assistance systems for forced migrants. Indeed, immigration and
refugee regimes in the region need further strengthening.
However, this evolution needs to come together with a better understanding of
mobility in the Sahel as something intertwined with regional economy and trans-
national social dynamics. Mobility has perennially stood as a pivotal factor in sus-
taining life in the Sahel. The legitimacy and legal foundation for this phenomenon
are conferred by the ECOWAS Protocol on the Free Movement of People and Goods.
Consequently, advocating for the support of people’s free movement at both
regional and continental levels becomes imperative to mitigate the broader-scale
adverse effects of migration control. Regrettably, the member states of ECOWAS
have never fully implemented the protocols, rendering the vision of free regional
movement susceptible to adjustments motivated by interests seeking to impede
regional migration210. Moreover, despite the intended assurance of free movement,
the utilisation of smugglers by migrants has surged over the years211.
On the other hand, the EU needs to promote area-based policies to deal with
the needs of refugees, IDPs, migrants and host communities. This approach would
aim to avoid the creation of “assistance hot spots” such as several big cities that
have gained notoriety as a destination for displaced persons. All in all, focusing in
area-based responses would require a paradigm shift away from route-centric poli-
cy responses that have characterised the European approach since the peak of the
migration “crisis” in the Mediterranean in 2015212.
207 Maunganidze, Ottilia Anna. 2023. “Europe’s migration deals in the Sahel must be revi-
sed”. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/europes-migration-deals-in-the-
sahel-must-be-revised.
208 Bøås. 2020, op cit.
209 Fakhry. 2023, op cit.
210 Ibid.
211 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC]. 2022. “Smuggling of Migrants
in the Sahel”. Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment (TOCTA) – Sahel. https://www.
unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/tocta_sahel/TOCTA_Sahel_som_2023.pdf
212 Fakhry. 2023, op cit.
60 A REthInk oF thE EU’S StRAtEGy In thE SAhEL REGIon
All together, a new revision of EU migration policies in the Sahel should consider
and acknowledge the long-lasting effects of these policies. The EU has been a crucial
partner for Sahelian states in building capacities for migration control, so it needs to
act accordingly to this responsibility. Indeed, “the EU has enabled partner countries
to adopt tougher policies and set precedents on migration and displacement that
are detrimental to the long-term objectives of enhancing regional free movement
and protection of vulnerable migrants and displaced persons”213. This policy rhetoric
has distanced the EU for its stance as a responsible normative power. Instead, the
EU needs to comply with this ideational position for two reasons: first, to increase
coherence within European policies and, second, to “incite states to adopt more
progressive approaches to migration building on existing regional and continental
frameworks”214. In addition, this critical introspection needs to highlight that EU
migration policies have had contradictory results. For instance, while the external-
isation of EU borders has reduced the arrival of migrants to European shores, it has
also obstructed mobility in the region for important segments of the population
such as nomadic and semi nomadic communities, besides migrants and displaced
persons that use the region as a transit area. Again, this reminds us of the common
critique of the misunderstanding of the phenomenon of migration in the Sahel.
Obsessing with the management of migration restricts the integrated approach
that the EU Sahel strategies have been aiming at for the last years. In order to
improve policies in this area, European policymakers need to envision long-term
responses that aim at reducing conflicts and violence in the region and promot-
ing protection mechanisms provided by the states. Hence, EU missions such as
EUCAP Sahel Niger and Mali, which were included in the EU Migration Partnership
Framework in 2016, need to reconsider their typical short-term activities focused on
putting barriers to migration that have been common since the peak of the migra-
tion crisis to favour area-based approaches and focus on displacement in the Sahel,
not only on migration towards Europe.
Finally, reframing the understanding of climate-related policies goes hand in
hand with reshaping violence and migration as core issues for the EU in the Sahel. In
spite of the coexistence of significant developmental challenges in the Sahel, compe-
tition over land and water resources continue to be critical for violence and instabil-
ity. As only 2% of cropland perimeters benefit from irrigation215, water access in the
Sahel is crucial since water is a scarce resource. This scarcity is a chronic challenge for
both Sahelian farmers and pastoralists as they rely on the region’s rainy season, typ-
ically from June to September with monsoon-like characteristics. Additionally, while
land-related issues are consistently considered among the top causes of conflict, land
tenure insecurity often remains peripheral216. In many customary dryland govern-
ance systems, groups’ possession rights of natural resources are guaranteed through
customary, formal and informal land use and tenure rights. Therefore, making the
213 Ibid.
214 Ibid.
215 Samasse, Kaboro, Niall P. Hanan, Julius Y. Anchang, and Yacouba Diallo. 2020. “A High-
Resolution Cropland Map for the West African Sahel Based on High-Density Training Data, Google
Earth Engine, and Locally Optimized Machine Learning” Remote Sensing, 12(9): 1436. https://doi.
org/10.3390/rs12091436.
216 Ibid.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 61
link between conflict with land tenure insecurity explicit serves as a starting point
for re-engaging in discussions on meaningful changes in the dynamics of local social
relationships, particularly regarding the security of resource rights within communal
tenure systems217. By pinpointing and acknowledging tenure insecurity as an underly-
ing cause of conflict, policymakers can establish a logical entry point for reinvigorat-
ed policy deliberations aimed at addressing the root causes of instability in the Sahel.
If governance is to be central for peace in the Sahel, assistance on governance
should have a strong emphasis on land rights and safe access to natural resources,
not security. The Rural Land Tenure Law enacted by Burkina Faso in 2009 stands
out as one of the most innovative land reform initiatives in the region, introduc-
ing mechanisms for the formalisation and protection of both statutory and cus-
tomary land rights while promoting decentralised land management218. Despite
its forward-thinking nature, more than a decade after its adoption, the actual
implementation of these reforms remains limited219. Similarly, Mali’s Agricultural
Land Law of 2017 aims to recognize and strengthen customary land rights, particu-
larly for women, and endeavours to enhance and decentralise land management.
Nevertheless, the establishment of local land committees, the key mechanism for
implementing the law, is still pending in a majority of the country220. This mirrors
the delayed formation221 of similar committees as outlined in Niger’s Rural Code222.
Under this inefficient regulatory context, growing social tensions and inter-com-
munal violence related to natural resource management adds to reportedly increased
state atrocities against civilians in the name of counter-terrorism223, which are only
the latest and most drastic examples adding to the protracted dynamics mentioned
before. The experience of abuse and mistreatment by authorities is prevalent but
also by the fragmented landscape of self-defence militias that have emerged due to
escalating militant islamist attacks and the need to protect their communities224.
217 Ibid, 28.
218 Moyenga, Paul Marie . 2015. “Land Tenure Legislation Reforms in Burkina Faso: Between
Interruptions and Continuity in Public Action.” FAO Land Tenure Journal 1 (15). P.79. https://
www.fao.org/3/i5244te/i5244te.pdf.
219 Millenium Challenge Corporation. 2023. “Promoting Land Tenure Security in Burkina
Faso.” Millenium Challenge Corporation. https://assets.mcc.gov/content/uploads/evalbrief-
20230022836-bfa-rural-land-gov.pdf.
220 Idris, Iffat. 2020. “Justice Systems in the Sahel.” K4D Helpdesk . UK Department for
International Development . https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ebd676486650c278fc
64bd1/765_Justice_Systems_in_the_Sahel.pdf.
221 USAID. 2016. “Niger Country Profile:Property Rights and Resource Governance.”
United States Agency for International development. https://www.land-links.org/wp-content/
uploads/2016/09/USAID_Land_Tenure_Niger_Profile.pdf.
222 Jamart, Clara. 2011. “Progress Made by Niger’s Rural Code.” Agter.org. March 1, 2011.
https://www.agter.org/bdf/en/corpus_chemin/fiche-chemin-92.html.
223 Human Rights Watch. 2023. “Mali: New Atrocities by Malian Army, Apparent Wagner
Fighters | Human Rights Watch.” HRW. July 24, 2023. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/24/
mali-new-atrocities-malian-army-apparent-wagner-fighters#:~:text=Both%20JNIM%20and%20
ISGS%20have.
224 Ammour, Laurence-Aïda. 2020. “How Violent Extremist Groups Exploit Intercommunal
Conflicts in the Sahel.” Africa Center for Strategic Studies. February 2020. https://africacenter.org/
spotlight/how-violent-extremist-groups-exploit-intercommunal-conflicts-in-the-sahel/.
62 A REthInk oF thE EU’S StRAtEGy In thE SAhEL REGIon
If the EU is to pursue a multi-phased approach, acting at all stages of the conflict
cycle225 and more focused on governance, it cannot fixate primarily on a govern-
ment’s security (i.e., regime survival) as it does not necessarily mean security for
individuals226. If short and medium-term priorities of fighting terrorism and stop-
ping migration flows and drug trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea overshadow
long term stabilisation goals, assistance mechanisms will risk extending the reach of
the executive power without political accountability, possibly protracting violence.
An exclusively technical approach to stabilisation risks overlooking the inherent
political aspects of governance assistance and frequently fails to adequately con-
front underlying socio-economic grievances. To continue to collaborate in tackling
the root socio-economic causes of violence in the Sahel, governance reform needs
to be structurally approached as an inherently political process.
TOWARDS “TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM”?
A third and final aspect relevant to exploring the elements that promote a dis-
tinctive EU approach to the Sahel revolves around the concept of ‘transformative
pragmatism’. As outlined above, this notion contrasts with what the EU has termed
“principled pragmatism” in certain strategies. In essence, this approach seeks to
reconcile the traditional normative nature of the EU with the emerging pragmatic
or geopolitical impetus catalysed by increased global competition. The challenge,
however, is to achieve this balance without compromising the credibility of the
strategy and of the EU itself. Advocating principled pragmatism while pursuing a
predominantly securitising approach to perceived priority issues and overtly mili-
taristic responses only exacerbates the overarching problems of coherence, double
standards and inconsistency projected by the EU in the region - a consequence of its
own choices, as outlined in the previous section. One interviewee succinctly artic-
ulated this dilemma by claiming that the EU often presents itself as a value-based
political actor, but behaves more like a consortium of states driven by their interests
and worldviews. In addition, as one contributor to this report points out, policies
based solely on the rhetoric of values prove ineffective because values are not uni-
versally shared. If the EU is to maintain a values-based approach, it must engage
in cooperation, dialogue and negotiation with local organisations that are more
closely aligned with these values.227
Additionally, amid the prevailing uncertainty about the unfolding scenarios
following a series of coups d’état in several countries, the expulsion of France or
the UN mission, and the formation of new organisational alliances that exclude
major actors such as the G5 Sahel or ECOWAS, there is a temptation to continue to
defend the security strategy as the optimal choice and to extend the dialogue with
nations beyond this sphere. Such a response, however, fails to take into account the
potential lessons to be learned from the current situation, as well as the volatility
225 European Union. 2016, op cit, p.28.
226 Ould-Abdallah, Ahmedou. 2017. “The Security-Development Nexus in the Sahel Sahara
Region.” Friends of Europe. July 18, 2017. https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/the-security-
development-nexus-in-the-sahel-sahara-region/.
227 Interview PO2.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 63
and parallels with processes experienced by other states in the region, such as Togo,
Senegal or Côte d’Ivoire.
Transformative pragmatism is based on the notion of recognising and embracing
the novel circumstances that shape the current landscape, most notably an environ-
ment characterised by a plethora of options for engagement with local actors. The
current juncture, marked by the delineation of the boundaries of European strategy
and a shift in the regional context, underlines at least two principles central to the
concept of transformative pragmatism. First, it entails adopting a different attitude
- one that is less rigid and more transactional, capable of adapting to evolving cir-
cumstances, such as the emergence of new actors such as military juntas, while at
the same time engaging in deliberations on dilemmas and drawing red lines. This
disposition depends on promoting greater autonomy for the EU as an actor, less
dependent on the interests of member states and more rooted in the expertise of
internal bodies such as the EEAS, but fundamentally in dialogue with the insights
and perspectives of local actors, especially those with a social and intellectual ori-
entation, such as universities, think tanks and grassroots organisations. Second,
transformative pragmatism transcends a securitarian approach and adopts a less
intrusive stance, inclined towards forging strategic partnerships on issues that pose
collective challenges, such as the impact of the climate crisis, and oriented towards
maximising added value in the face of intensifying competition. The overall aim of
this transformative pragmatism is to develop a strategy that is more legitimised by
local actors, more coherent and more sustainable in the long term.
Similarly, the International Crisis Group228 argues that the EU should adopt a
more “modest” and “realistic” approach to the prevailing context. In line with this
stance, it proposes three additional guidelines to complement those outlined above:
firstly, the exploration of non-military means to address insecurity; secondly, a
recalibration of long-term policies to address structural issues, including the provi-
sion of essential services and combating climate change; and finally, the imperative
to protect the most vulnerable civilian populations.
Within the paradigm of geopolitical realism that pervades many governmental
institutions, including the EU, some of these proposals may be seen as idealistic.
However, over the course of more than 13 years, the adoption of increasingly mil-
itarised strategies has only served to exacerbate the prevailing volatility and foster
a pervasive sense of bewilderment and perplexity in Brussels, especially after the
coup that deposed President Bazoum in 2023. Transformative pragmatism does not
pretend to offer a concrete blueprint; rather, it represents the seeds of a distinct
approach to understanding, deliberating and engaging in contexts characterised by
immense social, human and political complexity.
228 International Crisis Group. 2024. “Reorienting Europe´s Approach in the Sahel”. Watch
List 2024 for the EU. 30 January 2024. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/reorienting-euro-
pes-approach-in-the-sahel.
65
Conclusions
The Sahel region remains of great importance to European interests. The formu-
lation of three distinct strategies (2011, 2015 and 2021) to address escalating
security concerns in the region underscores the growing recognition of the Sahel’s
strategic importance and the need for effective European intervention. However,
the EU, with its multiple interests and agendas, struggles to effectively represent
and address the complexities of the Sahel’s environmental, political, cultural and
social dynamics.
This challenge is exemplified by the problem of a securitised understanding of
highly complex phenomena such as extremist violence, migration patterns and the
scale and impact of the climate crisis. This approach has led to an overemphasis on
militarised responses, as evidenced by the ambitious but often disjointed nature of
European strategies. Conflicting perspectives among member states and EU institu-
tions, set in an increasingly pragmatic context, hinder coherent action. Moreover,
internal organisational dynamics within the EU, coupled with tensions and contra-
dictions between different EU actors involved in policy formulation and implemen-
tation in the Sahel, limit local agency in policy-making beyond elite circles.
This report serves as a reflexive exercise to address the persistent challenges that
shape security aspirations in the region, and aims to mitigate the overly securitised
approach that has expanded and ultimately stalled EU stabilisation and security
assistance efforts in the Sahel. By reconceptualising paradigms and reinterpret-
ing the reality of the Sahel, the report argues for a critical and less securitised EU
approach to the region’s specific challenges. Central to this approach is the incor-
poration of locally generated knowledge promotion through the lens of ‘transform-
ative pragmatism’.
68 AnnExES
ANNEX 2. INTERVIEWS
The research team has conducted 17 interviews to draft this report. These inter-
views were intentionally addressed towards different actors of the policy-design
process, such as academics, civilian experts and policy and political officers from
the European External Action Service. The identities of the interviewees have been
intentionally safeguarded to comply with the confidentiality standards agreed
upon. Therefore, when citing interviewees, they can only be identified by an acro-
nym of their role, be it academic (A), ambassador (AMB), civilian expert (CE), law
enforcement officer (LEO), politica officer (PLO) and policy officer (PO). The fol-
lowing table references all 17 interviews with their respective coding, institutional
affiliation, location and date when the interview took place.
ID Interviewee Institutional affiliation Location Date
A1 Academic Scuola Superiore Sant’anna di Pisa Barcelona 9/11/23
A2 Academic Norwegian University of Life Sciences Barcelona 8/11/23
A3 Academic Egmont Institute Brussels 18/10/23
A4 Academic Bristol University Barcelona 30/10/23
A5 Academic Université Libre de Bruxelles Brussels 17/10/23
AMB Ambassador European External Action Service Brussels 16/10/23
CE1 Civilian expert Oxfam Brussels Brussels 17/10/23
CE2 Civilian expert Oxfam Brussels Brussels 17/10/23
CE3 Civilian expert International Crisis Group Barcelona 19/10/23
CE4 Civilian expert International Crisis Group Barcelona 26/10/23
LEO Law enforcement
officer
Integrated Strategic Planning for CSDP
and Stabilisation (EEAS) Brussels 17/10/23
PLO1 Political officer European External action Service (Mali
and Mauritania) Brussels 24/10/23
PLO2 Political Officer EEAS (Sahel) Brussels 18/10/23
PLO3 Political Officer Political officer for the Sahel (EEAS) Brussels 18/10/23
PO1 Policy officer Foreign Policy Instruments (EEAS) Brussels 18/10/23
PO2 Policy officer ECDPM Brussels 20/10/23
PO3 Policy officer EEAS (migration) Brussels 16/10/23
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 69
ANNEX 3. PROGRAM OF THE SEMINAR ‘WHAT ROLE FOR THE EU IN THE
SAHEL?’ (10/9/2023)
Venue: CIDOB (C/Elisabets, 12)
9.30-9.45.- Welcome remarks
Anna Ayuso, CIDOB Senior Researcher.
Oscar Mateos, GLOBALCODES Lead Researcher.
Jordi Solé, MEP Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
9.45-11.30.- First round table: “The EU in the Sahel: assessing the problems and inconsist-
encies of the past ten years’ strategy”
Speaker: Bernardo Venturi, IAI Istituto Affari Internazionali.
11.30-12- Coffee break
12-13.45.- Second round table: “Security and political dilemmas in the Sahel: what role
for external actors?”
Speaker: Beatriz Mesa, Université Internationale de Rabat (UIR) and Université Gaston Berger
(UGB, Senegal).
13.45- 15.15- Lunch
15.15-16.45.- Plenary session: “Rethinking the EU’s strategy in the Sahel”
16.45-17. Closing remarks
Bernardo Venturi is Associate Fellow at IAI, where he focuses
on Africa, civilian crisis management, EU external relations,
peacebuilding and development. He is also Head of Research
and Policy and co-founder of the Agency for Peacebuilding
(AP) and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna. He
has 20 years of experience as a scholar and a practitioner, pub-
lishing extensively on peacebuilding, security, African affairs
and European Union foreign policy. Bernardo has published
extensively on governance and security in the Sahel, with a
special focus on European engagement in the region. Bernardo has also consult-
ed for several regional and international organizations including the European
Commission, EEAS, European Parliament, IGAD, OSCE, the Italian MFA and sev-
eral international NGOs and platforms and he lectures in several MA courses and
international training programmes. Bernardo obtained his PhD in 2009 from the
University of Bologna, where he also held a post-doctoral research fellowship.
Featured publications:
• Venturi, Bernardo. (2022). The EU’s Diplomatic Engagement in the Sahel,
IAI.
• Venturi, Bernardo. (2020).The Great Illusion: Security Sector Reform in the
Sahel, The International Spectator.
• Venturi, Bernardo. (2019). An EU Integrated Approach in the Sahel: The
Role for Governance, IAI/NDI
• Venturi, Bernardo. (2017). The EU and the Sahel: A Laboratory of
Experimentation for the Security–Migration–Development Nexus, IAI.
70 AnnExES
Beatriz Mesa holds a PhD in Political Science from the
University of Grenoble Alpes, France (2017), with a doctor-
al thesis on “the transformative role of armed secessionist
and jihadist groups in organized crime actors in the Sahel”.
She is currently an affiliated lecturer and researcher at the
International University of Rabat (UIR) in the Department of
Political Science and International Relations. She combines her
teaching activity with her work as a correspondent for Cadena
Cope and collaborations with other media for North Africa
and the Sahel based in Rabat. She is also a lecturer at the Gaston Berger University
in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and a scientific member of the CSG laboratory of the UIR
and the Laboratory for the Analysis of Society and Power (LASPAD) in Senegal. She
has carried out research since 2007 in the countries of North Africa, West Africa and
the Sahel, in particular Mauritania, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Niger and
Guinea focusing on geopolitics in Africa, critical security, conflicts, peacekeeping
operations, terrorism, political violence, organized crime, borders and immigration.
Featured publications:
• Mesa, Beatriz (2023). Le Sahel, théâtre des rivalités maghrébines (Maroc,
l’Algérie et Libye), Akfar Ideas.
• Mesa, Beatriz (2022). Los grupos armados del Sahel. Conflicto y economía
criminal en el norte de Mali, La Catarata.
• Mesa, Beatriz (2020). L’évolution de la violence au Sahel (2001-2020), une
approche économique, Revue Afrique(s) en mouvement, nº3.
• Mesa, Beatriz (2018). Natural resources at the center of geopolitics in Sahel,
Journal of Social Science Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla.
Confirmed attendees
• Bernardo Venturi, Associate Fellow, IAI
• Beatriz Mesa, Affiliated lecturer and researcher, University of Rabat
• Anna Ayuso, Senior Researcher, CIDOB.
• Oriol Puig, Sub-Saharan Africa Technician, Ministry for Foreign Action and
European Union, Departamento de Acción Exterior y Unión Europea, Government
of Catalonia.
• Jose Luis Gonzalez Garcia, Deputy Director General for bilateral relations with
Sub-Saharan African countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and
Cooperation.
• Moussa Bourekba, Senior Researcher, CIDOB.
• Helena Vicente, Responsible for European Projects, Catalan Agency for
Development Cooperation, Government of Catalonia.
• Diego Muro, Full Professor, University of St. Andrews.
• Gabriel Garroum, Post-doc Researcher, IBEI
• Andrea Noferini, Educational Director and Professor, CEI International Affairs
• Guillem Farrés, Lecturer, Open University of Catalonia.
• Lourdes Benavides, Head of Programm West Africa, Oxfam Intermón.
• Javier Renteria, Organizer and predoc researcher, GLOBALCODES.
• Lluc Torrella, Organizer, GLOBALCODES.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 71
• Oscar Mateos, Organizer and Principal Researcher,GLOBALCODES.
• Andrea Daza, Researcher and Associate Professor, GLOBALCODES.
• Mercè Kirchner, Researcher and Professor, GLOBALCODES.
• Noemi Morell, Cordinator, Casa de Mali.
• Jorge Piñera, Research Officer of the EuroMeSCo Project, IEMed.
• Andrea Chamorro, Researcher, Fundación Alternativas.
• Gaetano Giancaspro, Researcher, Bologna University
• Núria Fernandez, coordination and participation technician, Department of
Development and Cooperation, Government of Catalonia.
73
References
ACP-EC COUNCIL OF MINISTERS. 2013.
DECISION No 1/2006 of the ACP-EC COUNCIL
of MINISTERS of 2 June 2006 Specifying the
Multiannual Financial Framework for the
Period 2008 to 2013 and Modifying the Revised
ACP-EC Partnership Agreement. Europa.eu.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ES/
TXT/?uri=CELEX:22006D0608.
Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 2024.
“Deaths Linked to Militant Islamist Violence
in Africa”. Infographic. https://africacenter.org/
spotlight/mig2024-deaths-militant-islamist-vio-
lence-africa-rise/.
Alliance Sahel. 2023a. “The Sahel Alliance
at a Glance.”. Alliance Sahel, 2023. https://
www.alliance-sahel.org/wp-content/
uploads/2023/10/AlliancSahel_EnBref_EN_
WEB.pdf.
—. 2023b. “Open Data Dashboard.” 2023.
https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/the-pro-
jects/.
Ammour, Laurence-Aïda. 2020. “How Violent
Extremist Groups Exploit Intercommunal
Conflicts in the Sahel.” Africa Center for
Strategic Studies. February 2020. https://afri-
cacenter.org/spotlight/how-violent-extremist-
groups-exploit-intercommunal-conflicts-in-the-
sahel/.
Rodríguez-Iglesias, Ana Isabel; Carles
Fernández-Torné, Oscar Mateos Martín and
Albert Caramés-Boada. 2023. “What Truth?
How Civil Society Organisations Shape the
Knowledge Production of Truth Commissions”.
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding,
17(5): 536-556. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502
977.2023.2251951.
Autesserre, Séverine (2014). “Peaceland:
conflict resolution and the everyday politics
of international intervention”. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Baele, Frédéric; Virginie Baudais, Shourjya
Deb, Tiéman Diarra, Oumarou Hamani, Thomas
Ouédraogo. 2021. “Humanitarian protection in
the Liptako-Gourma region: Local protection
mechanisms and humanitarian response”. SIPRI
and Danish Refugee Council. https://www.sipri.
org/sites/default/files/2023-06/rapport_final_
juin_2022_final_eng.pdf.
Baldaro, Edoardo and Francesco Strazzari.
2023. “Strategic misalignment: European secu-
rity and P/CVE engagement in the Sahel”.
Mediterranean Politics, p.4. https://doi.org/10.1
080/13629395.2023.2289795.
Baudais, Virginie, and Souleymaine Maïga.
2022. “The European Union Training Mission
in Mali: An Assessment.” SIPRI. April 2022.
https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-
04/bp_2204_eutm_mali.pdf.
Bello, Valeria. 2021. “The Spiral of Prejudice
and the Securitization of Migration: The
Complexity of Small Changes in the Italian
Migration Networked Governance.” Italian
Political Science 16 (2): 58–73. https://italian-
politicalscience.com/index.php/ips/article/
view/170/122.
Benjaminsen, Tor A, Koffi Alinon, Halvard
Buhaug, and Jill Tove Buseth. 2012. “Does
Climate Change Drive Land-Use Conflicts in the
Sahel?” Journal of Peace Research 49 (1): 97–111.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343311427343.
Benjaminsen, Tor A. 2008. “Does Supply-
Induced Scarcity Drive Violent Conflicts in
the African Sahel? The Case of the Tuareg
Rebellion in Northern Mali.” Journal of
Peace Research 45 (6): 819–36. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0022343308096158.
Benjaminsen, Tor A., and Boubacar Ba. 2018.
“Why Do Pastoralists in Mali Join Jihadist
Groups? A Political Ecological Explanation.”
The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (1): 1–20.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2018.14744
57.
Benjaminsen, Tor A., and Pierre Hiernaux.
2019. “From Desiccation to Global Climate
Change: A History of the Desertification
Narrative in the West African Sahel, 1900–
2018.” Global Environment 12 (1): 206–36.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26726508.
Bergmann, Julian. 2018. “Neofunctionalism
and EU External Policy Integration: The Case
of Capacity Building in Support of Security and
Development (CBSD).” Journal of European
Public Policy, 26 (9): 1253–72. https://doi.org/1
0.1080/13501763.2018.1526204.
Bilquin, Bruno, and Eric Pichon. 2023.
“The Coup in Niger Consequences for EU
74 REFEREnCES
Policies in the Sahel.” European Parliamentary
Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.
eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/753951/EPRS_
BRI(2023)753951_EN.pdf.
Biscop, Sven. 2016. “All or Nothing? The EU
Global Strategy and Defence Policy after the
Brexit.” Contemporary Security Policy 37 (3):
431–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.201
6.1238120.
Bøås, Morten. 2020. “EU migration
management in the Sahel: unintended con-
sequences on the ground in Niger?” Third
World Quarterly, 41(1): 52-67. DOI:
10.1080/01436597.2020.1784002.
Charbonneau, Bruno. 2021.
“Counterinsurgency governance in the Sahel”.
International Affairs, 97 (6): 1805-1823. https://
doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab182.
—. 2022. “The Climate of Counterinsurgency
and the Future of Security in the Sahel.”
Environmental Science & Policy, 138
(December): 97–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
envsci.2022.09.021.
Caruso, Francesca and Francesca Lenzi.
2023. “The Sahel Region: a Litmus Test for
EU-Africa Relations in a Changing Global
Order”. Foundation for European Progressive
Studies (FEPS), Instituto Affari Internazionali
(IAI), Fondation Jean-Jaurès. https://www.iai.it/
sites/default/files/feps_ps_9782931233177.pdf.
Cepero, Oriol, Sophie Desmidt, Adrien
Detges, Fabien Tondel, Pia Ackern, Adrian
Foong, and Jan Volkholz. 2021. “Climate
Change, Development and Security in the
Central Sahel.” Cascades report. https://www.
cascades.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/
Climate-Change-Development-and-Security-in-
the-Central-Sahel.pdf.
Cold-Ravnkilde, Signe Marie, and Katja
Lindskov Jacobsen. 2020. “Disentangling the
Security Traffic Jam in the Sahel: Constitutive
Effects of Contemporary Interventionism.”
International Affairs 96 (4): 855–74. https://doi.
org/10.1093/ia/iiaa093.
Colomba-Petteng, Léonard. 2023. “What do
‘local elites’ seek from EU security policies in
the Sahel? Re-thinking the agency of non-Euro-
pean actors”. Cooperation and Conflict, 0(0).
DOI: 10.1177/00108367231197522.
Çonkar, Ahmet Berat . 2020. “Development
and Security Challenges in the Sahel Region .”
NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Mediterranean
and Middle Eastern Group (GSM). https://
www.nato-pa.int/download-file?filename=/
sites/default/files/2021-02/042%20GSM%20
20%20E%20rev%202%20fin%20%20-%20
DEVELOPMENT%20AND%20SECURITY%20
CHALLENGES%20IN%20THE%20SAHEL%20
REGION_0.pdf.
Council of the EU Press Release. 2015.
“EU Appoints New European Union Special
Representative for the Sahel,” 2015. https://
www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-relea-
ses/2015/12/07/eu-appoints-eu-special-repre-
sentative-sahel/.
Council of the European Union. 2003.
“European Security Strategy – a Secure Europe
in a Better World.” General Secretariat of the
Council. 2003. https://op.europa.eu/en/publi-
cation-detail/-/publication/d0928657-af99-
4552-ae84-1cbaaa864f96/language-en.
—. 2011. “European Strategy for Security and
Development in the Sahel.” Joint Staff Working
Paper – Joint Paper. SEC(2011)331. Brussels,
08.03.2011. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/
doc/document/ST-7569-2011-INIT/en/pdf.
—. 2013. “Council Regulation (EU) No
370/2011 of 11 April 2011 Amending Regulation
(EC) No 215/2008 on the Financial Regulation
Applicable to the 10th European Development
Fund, as regards the European External Action
Service.” Official Journal of the European
Union. 2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32011R0370.
—. 2015. “Council Conclusions on the
Sahel Regional Action Plan 2015-2020.”
General Secretariat of the Council. April 20,
2015. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/
media/21522/st07823-en15.pdf.
—. 2016. “EUCAP Sahel Niger: mission exten-
ded, budget agreed, mandate amended.” Press
release, 18 July 2016. https://www.consilium.
europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/07/18/
fac-sahel-niger/.
—. 2021a. COUNCIL DECISION (CFSP)
2021/509 of 22 March 2021 Establishing a
European Peace Facility, and Repealing
Decision (CFSP) 2015/528. https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/
PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021D0509.
—. 2021b. “The European Union’s Integrated
Strategy in the Sahel.” General Secretariat of the
Council. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/
document/ST-7723-2021-INIT/en/pdf.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 75
Crola, Jean Denis. 2019. “Sahel: Fighting
Inequality to Respond to Development and
Security Challenges.” Oxfam. https://doi.
org/10.21201/2019.4481.
Davis, Diana K. 2005. “Indigenous Knowledge
and the Desertification Debate: Problematising
Expert Knowledge in North Africa.” Geoforum
36 (4): 509–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geofo-
rum.2004.08.003.
Doan, Miki Khanh, Ruth Hill, Stephane
Hallegatte, Paul Corral, Ben Brunkhorst, Minh
Nguyen, Samuel Freije-Rodriguez, Esther
Naikal. 2023. “Counting People Exposed to,
Vulnerable to, or at High Risk From Climate
Shocks. A Methodology”. World Bank Group
(Poverty and Equity Global Practice & Climate
Change Group), Policy Research Working
Paper, 10619. https://documents1.worldbank.
org/curated/en/099602511292336760/pdf/
IDU07639ca570f3cb048db09bf60fc2cc82df22d.
pdf.
Domínguez, Joaquín. 2018. “Las cifras de
la inmigración en el Mediterráneo”. El Orden
Mundial. https://elordenmundial.com/mapas-
y-graficos/las-cifras-de-la-inmigracion-en-el-
mediterraneo/.
Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS).1979. “Protocol Relating
to Free Movement of Persons, Residence and
Establishment”, 29 May 1979, A/P 1/5/79.
https://www.refworld.org/docid/492187502.
html.
Ejdus, Filip. 2017. “‘Here is your mis-
sion, now own it!’ The rhetoric and practi-
ce of local ownership in EU interventions”.
European Security, 26(4): 461-484. DOI:
10.1080/09662839.2017.1333495.
European Agency for the Management of
Operational Cooperation at the External Borders
of the Member States of the European Union.
2014. “Handbook to the Operational Plan Joint
Maritime Operations • European Agency for the
Management of Operational Cooperation at the
External Borders of the Member States of the
European Union.” https://www.statewatch.org/
media/documents/news/2017/feb/eu-frontex-han-
dbook-joint-maritime-operations-censored.pdf.
European External Action Service. 2011.
“Strategy for Security and Development in the
Sahel.” EEAS. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/
default/files/strategy_for_security_and_develop-
ment_in_the_sahel_en_0.pdf.
—. 2016. “The EUCAP Sahel Niger civi-
lian mission”. Common Security and Defence
Policy. https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/
csdp/missions-and-operations/eucap-sahel-
niger/pdf/factsheet_eucap_sahel_niger_en.pdf.
—. 2021. “Sahel. Strategic Communications.
An Integrated Approach to Address the Different
Challenges.” August 2021. https://www.eeas.
europa.eu/eeas/sahel-region_en#9354.
—. 2022. “Burkina Faso: Remarks on Behalf
of High Representative/Vice-President Josep
Borrell at the EP Debate Following the Coup
de Force | EEAS.” EEAS Press Team, October
2022. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/burki-
na-faso-remarks-behalf-high-representativevice-
president-josep-borrell-ep-debate-following-
coup_en.
European Parliament. 2024. “Joint
Committee of Foreign Affairs and commit-
tee on Development and subcommittee on
Security and Defence. 23/01/2024.” Reference
ID: 20240123-0930-COMMITTEE-AFET-DEVE-
SEDE. https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/
en/webstreaming/joint-committee-on-foreign-
affairs-and-committee-on-development-and-
subcommittee-on-security-and-def_20240123-
0930-COMMITTEE-AFET-DEVE-SEDE.
European Union. 2016. “Shared Vision,
Common Action: A Stronger Europe a Global
Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and
Security Policy.” https://www.eeas.europa.eu/
sites/default/files/eugs_review_web_0.pdf.
Europol. 2023. “European Union Terrorism
Situation and Trend Report.” Luxemburg:
Publications Office of the European Union.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/
default/files/documents/European%20
Union%20Terrorism%20Situation%20and%20
Trend%20report%202023.pdf.
Fakhry, Alia. 2023. “More than borders:
Effects of EU interventions on migration in the
Sahel”. Institute for Security Studies, West Africa
Report, 43. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/
site/uploads/WAR-43.pdf.
G5 Secretariat Permanent. 2016. “Strategie
Pour Le Development et La Securité Des Pays
Du G5 Sahel”. https://www.g5sahel.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/images_Docs_SDS_
G5S_VF.pdf.
Galula, David. 1964. “Counter-Insurgency
Warfare: Theory and Practice”. London and
New York: Frederick A. Preager. https://indians-
76 REFEREnCES
trategicknowledgeonline.com/web/Galula%20
David%20-%20Counterinsurgency%20Warfare.
pdf.
Gangneron, Fabrice, Caroline Pierre, Elodie
Robert, Laurent Kergoat, Manuela Grippa,
Françoise Guichard, Pierre Hiernaux, and
Crystele Leauthaud. 2022a. “Persistence and
Success of the Sahel Desertification Narrative.”
Regional Environmental Change 22 (4). https://
doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01969-1.
Goxho, Delina. 2021. “Unpacking the EU´S
New Sahel Strategy.” Egmont Royal Institute for
International Relations. April 22, 2021. https://
www.egmontinstitute.be/unpacking-the-eus-
new-sahel-strategy/.
Gözkaman, Armağan. 2023. “The European
Union -Sahel Relations: An Elusive Nexus bet-
ween Development and Security,” International
Congress on Eurasian Economies, session 6C:
394–400. https://www.avekon.org/papers/2729.
pdf.
Graham, Franklin Charles. 2011.
“Abductions, Kidnappings and Killings in the
Sahel and Sahara.” Review of African Political
Economy 38 (130): 587–604. https://www.jstor.
org/stable/23145864.
Horváth, Sarah, and Schwab, Regine. 2023.
“The Externalization of EU Borders: The
Case of Agadez”. PRIF Blog. https://blog.prif.
org/2023/03/28/the-externalization-of-eu-bor-
ders-the-case-of-agadez/.
Human Rights Watch. 2023. “Mali: New
Atrocities by Malian Army, Apparent Wagner
Fighters | Human Rights Watch.” HRW. July 24,
2023. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/24/
mali-new-atrocities-malian-army-apparent-wag-
ner-fighters#:~:text=Both%20JNIM%20and%20
ISGS%20have.
Idris, Iffat. 2020. “Justice Systems in the
Sahel.” K4D Helpdesk . UK Department for
International Development . https://assets.
publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ebd676486
650c278fc64bd1/765_Justice_Systems_in_the_
Sahel.pdf.
International Crisis Group. 2021. “A
Course Correction for the Sahel Stabilisation
Strategy”. Africa Report, 299. https://icg-prod.
s3.amazonaws.com/299-sahel-stabilisation-stra-
tegy_0.pdf.
—. 2024. “Reorienting Europe´s Approach
in the Sahel”. Watch List 2024 for the EU.
30 January 2024. https://www.crisisgroup.org/
africa/sahel/reorienting-europes-approach-in-
the-sahel.
International Organization for Migration.
2017. “African migration to Europe: How can
adequate data help improve evidence-based
policymaking and reduce possible misconcep-
tions?”. IOM Global Migration Data Analysis
Centre. Issue No. 11, November 2017. https://
publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/gmdac_
data_briefing_series_issue_11.pdf.
—. 2023. “Migration Flow to Europe.
Arrivals”. Global Data Institute. Displacement
Tracking Matrix. https://dtm.iom.int/europe/
arrivals.
Ioannides, Isabelle. 2020. “Peace and Security
in 2020 Evaluating the EU Approach to Tackling
the Sahel Conflicts.” European Parliamentary
Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.
eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/654173/EPRS_
STU(2020)654173_EN.pdf.
Jamart, Clara. 2011. “Progress Made by
Niger’s Rural Code.” Agter.org. March 1, 2011.
https://www.agter.org/bdf/en/corpus_chemin/
fiche-chemin-92.html.
Jayasundara-Smits, Shyamika. 2018.
“Bracing the Wind and Riding the Norm Life
Cycle: Inclusive Peacebuilding in the European
Capacity Building Mission in Sahel–Mali
(EUCAP Sahel–Mali).” Peacebuilding 6 (3): 233–
47. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2018.14
91683.
Jezequel, ean-Hervé . 2021. “Mali, a Coup
within a Coup.” International Crisis Group.
May 27, 2021. https://www.crisisgroup.org/afri-
ca/sahel/mali/mali-un-coup-dans-le-coup.
Joseph, Jonathan, and Ana E. Juncos.
2019. “A Promise Not Fulfilled: The (Non)
Implementation of the Resilience Turn in EU
Peacebuilding.” Contemporary Security Policy
41 (2): 287–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/13523
260.2019.1703082.
Laurent, Samuel. 2013. Sahelistan. Paris:
Éditions du Seuil.
Le Cam, Morgane. 2023. “Niger Chooses
Russia over Europe.” Le Monde, December
6, 2023. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-
africa/article/2023/12/06/niger-chooses-russia-
over-europe_6318064_124.html.
Lewis, Aidan. 2013. “Why the Sahara Is Not
the ‘New Afghanistan.’” BBC News, February 1,
2013, sec. Africa. https://www.bbc.com/news/
world-africa-21299153.
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 77
Malejacq, Romain, and Adam Sandor.
2020. “Sahelistan? Military Intervention and
Patronage Politics in Afghanistan and Mali.”
Civil Wars 22 (4): 543–66. https://doi.org/10.10
80/13698249.2020.1813405.
Mateos Martín, Oscar. 2012. “La Construcción
de paz posbélica: análisis de los debates críticos
a través del caso de Sierra Leona”. Doctoral
thesis, dir. Rafael Grasa Hernández. Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona. https://scholar.goo-
gle.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=e
s&user=BYNTHIMAAAAJ&citation_for_view=B
YNTHIMAAAAJ:yFnVuubrUp4C.
—. 2022. “De la agenda normativa al ‘giro
pragmático’: causas, implicaciones y dilemas de
la estrategia securitaria de la UE en el Sahel.”
Revista UNISCI, 20 (60): 145–67. https://doi.
org/10.31439/unisci-152.
Mateos Martín, Oscar and Andreu Solà-
Martín. 2022. “Whose Peace? Grappling with
Local Ownership in Sierra Leone”. Peace and
Conflict Studies, 28(2). https://nsuworks.nova.
edu/pcs/vol28/iss2/4/.
Maunganidze, Ottilia Anna. 2023. “Europe’s
migration deals in the Sahel must be revised”.
Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.
org/iss-today/europes-migration-deals-in-the-
sahel-must-be-revised.
Mbow, Cheikh, Martin Brandt, Issa
Ouedraogo, Jan de Leeuw, and Michael
Marshall. 2015. “What Four Decades of Earth
Observation Tell Us about Land Degradation
in the Sahel?” Remote Sensing 7 (4): 4048–67.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs70404048.
Mednick, Sam . 2022. “French Accuse
Russian Mercenaries of Staging Burials in
Mali.” AP News. April 22, 2022. https://apnews.
com/article/russia-ukraine-ouagadougou-bur-
kina-faso-europe-africa-af0965b3bd459f90c-
9cf930625aa4590.
Merchant, Emily Klancher. 2022.
“Environmental Malthusianism and demogra-
phy”. Social studies of science, 52(4): 536–560.
https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221104929.
Mesa, Beatriz. 2022. “Los grupos armados del
Sahel. Conflicto y economía criminal en el norte
de Mali”. Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata.
Michailof, Serge. 2016. “Africanistan: Is
the Sahel on the Road to Becoming Another
Afghanistan?” Horizons: Journal of International
Relations and Sustainable Development, no. 6:
174–87. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48573622.
Millenium Challenge Corporation. 2023.
“Promoting Land Tenure Security in Burkina
Faso.” Millenium Challenge Corporation.
https://assets.mcc.gov/content/uploads/eval-
brief-20230022836-bfa-rural-land-gov.pdf.
Molnár, Anna and Vecsey, Mariann (2022).
“The EU’s Missions and Operations from the
Central Mediterranean to West Africa in the
Context of the Migration Crisis”. International
Journal of Euro-Mediterranean Studies, 15(1):
55-82. https://emuni.si/ISSN/2232-6022/15.55-
82.pdf.
Mora Tebas, Juan Alberto. 2015. “EU-SAHEL.
Regional Action Plan (2015-2020): A Tangible
Holistic Approach.” Instituto Español de
Estudios Estratégicos. IEEE. https://www.ieee.
es/en/Galerias/fichero/docs_analisis/2015/
DIEEEA50-2015_UE-Sahel__JAMT_ENGLISH.pdf.
Moretti, Sébastien. 2020. “Transition
Migration in Niger. Stemming the Flows of
Migrants, but at What Cost?” Migration and
Society: Advances in Research, 3: 1-9. https://
doi.org/10.3167/arms.2020.111406.
Moyenga, Paul Marie . 2015. “Land Tenure
Legislation Reforms in Burkina Faso: Between
Interruptions and Continuity in Public Action.”
FAO Land Tenure Journal 1 (15). https://www.
fao.org/3/i5244te/i5244te.pdf.
Murphy, Theodore, and Ameer Chughtai.
2023. “A Necessary Trade-Off: Why the EU
Needs to Cooperate with Niger’s Post-Coup
Government on Counter-Terrorism.” European
Council on Foreign Relations, September 11,
2023. https://ecfr.eu/article/a-necessary-trade-
off-why-the-eu-needs-to-cooperate-with-nigers-
post-coup-government-on-counter-terrorism/.
Nsaibia, Héni. 2023. “Fact Sheet: Attacks on
Civilians Spike in Mali as Security Deteriorates
across the Sahel.” ACLED. September 21, 2023.
https://acleddata.com/2023/09/21/fact-sheet-
attacks-on-civilians-spike-in-mali-as-security-
deteriorates-across-the-sahel/.
—. 2024. “The Sahel: A Deadly New Era in
the Decades-Long Conflict”. Conflict Watchlist
2024. ACLED. https://acleddata.com/conflict-
watchlist-2024/sahel/.
Ould-Abdallah, Ahmedou. 2017. “The
Security-Development Nexus in the Sahel Sahara
Region.” Friends of Europe. July 18, 2017.
https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/the-
security-development-nexus-in-the-sahel-saha-
ra-region/.
78 REFEREnCES
Pérez de las Heras, Beatriz. 2020. “Climate
Security in the European Union’s Foreign Policy:
Addressing the Responsibility to Prepare for
Conflict Prevention.” Journal of Contemporary
European Studies 28 (3): 335–47. https://doi.org
/10.1080/14782804.2020.1731438.
Petraeus, General David H. , and Lt. General
James F. Amos. 2007. “The U.S. Army/Marine
Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.” The
University of Chicago Press. http://ndl.ether-
net.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/50585/1/290.
pdf.
Pichon, Eric. 2020. “Understanding the EU
Strategy for the Sahel.” European Parliamentary
Research Service. https://www.europarl.
europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_
BRI(2020)652050.
Pichon, Eric , and Mathilde Betant-Rasmussen.
2021. “New EU Strategic Priorities for the
Sahel. Addressing Regional Challenges through
Better Governance.” European Parliamentary
Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.
eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/696161/EPRS_
BRI(2021)696161_EN.pdf.
Quak, Evert-Jan. 2018. “Drivers, Challenges
and Opportunities for Job Creation in the Sahel.”
UK Department for International Development.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/med
ia/5c6ad4b340f0b61a25854a4e/455_Drivers_
Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_Job_
Creation_in_the_Sahel.pdf.
Raineri, Luca. 2020. “SAHEL CLIMATE
CONFLICTS?: When (Fighting) Climate Change
Fuels Terrorism.” European Union Institute for
Security Studies (EUISS), 2020. http://www.
jstor.org/stable/resrep28786.
Raleigh, Clionadh, Héni Nsaibia and
Caitriona Dowd. 2020. “The Sahel Crisis since
2012”, African Affairs, 120 (478): 123-143.
https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adaa022.
Ribot, Jesse, Papa Faye, and Matthew D.
Turner. 2020. “Climate of Anxiety in the
Sahel: Emigration in Xenophobic Times.”
Public Culture 32 (1): 45–75. https://doi.
org/10.1215/08992363-7816293.
Salzinger, Maëlle, and Sophie Desmidt.
2023. “Seven Ways to Support Resilience and
Crisis Responses in the Central Sahel - Mali
| ReliefWeb.” The Centre for Africa-Europe
Relations. March 30, 2023. https://reliefweb.int/
report/mali/seven-ways-support-resilience-and-
crisis-responses-central-sahel.
Samasse, Kaboro, Niall P. Hanan, Julius Y.
Anchang, and Yacouba Diallo. 2020. “A High-
Resolution Cropland Map for the West African
Sahel Based on High-Density Training Data,
Google Earth Engine, and Locally Optimized
Machine Learning”. Remote Sensing, 12 (9):
1436. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12091436.
Schmauder, Anna, Guillaume Sotomayor,
and Delina Goxho. n.d. “Strategic Missteps:
Learning from a Failed EU Sahel Strategy.”
Italian Institute for International Political
Studies. Accessed May 11, 2023. https://
www.ispionline.it/en/publication/strategic-
missteps-learning-failed-eu-sahel-strategy-
28130.
Scoones, Ian, Andrew Stirling, Dinesh Abrol,
Joanes Atela, Lakshmi Charli-Joseph, Hallie
Eakin, Adrian Ely, et al. 2020. “Transformations
to Sustainability: Combining Structural,
Systemic and Enabling Approaches.” Current
Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
42 (1): 65–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
cosust.2019.12.004.
Serwat, Ladd et al. 2023. “Moving out of the
Shadows: Shifts in Wagner Group Operations
Around the World”. ACLED. 33-40. https://
acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/
uploads/2023/08/ACLED_Report_Shifts-
in-Wagner-Group-Operations-Around-the-
World_2023.pdf.
Shurkin, Michael. 2014. “France’s War in
Mali: Lessons for an Expeditionary Army.” Rand
Corporation. October 17, 2014. https://www.
rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR770.html.
Torres, Laura. 2019. “The demographic explo-
sion in the Sahel region: its governance’s new cha-
llenge”. Opinion Paper IEEE 61/2019. https://www.
ieee.es/Galerias/fichero/docs_opinion/2019/
DIEEEO61_2019LAUTOR_demografia_
ENG.pdf.
Tripodi, Christian. 2023. “Hidden hands:
The failure of population-centric counterin-
surgency in Afghanistan 2008-11”. Journal of
Strategic Studies: 20-21. https://doi.org/10.1080
/01402390.2023.2169673.
UNHCR. 2024. “R4 SAHEL Coordination
Platform for forced displacements in the Sahel”.
https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/sahelcrisis.
United Nations. 2020. “Panel of Experts
pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2374
(2017) ConcerningFinal Report of the Panel
of Experts Established pursuant to Security
A RETHINK OF THE EU’S STRATEGY IN THE SAHEL: FROM PROBLEMATIC POLICY-MAKING TO A NEW ‘TRANSFORMATIVE PRAGMATISM’ 79
Council Resolution 2374 (2017) on Mali and
Renewed pursuant to Resolution 2484 (2019).”
Digitallibrary.un.org, August. https://digitalli-
brary.un.org/record/3876820.
United Nations Development Programme.
2022. “Human Development Report 2021-22.”
Hdr.undp.org. September 8, 2022. https://
hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-
report-2021-22.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
[UNODC]. 2022. “Smuggling of Migrants in
the Sahel”. Transnational Organized Crime
Threat Assessment (TOCTA) – Sahel. https://
www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/
tocta_sahel/TOCTA_Sahel_som_2023.pdf.
United Nations Security Council. 2013. “‘Arc
of Instability’ across Africa, If Left Unchecked,
Could Turn Continent into Launch Pad for
Larger-Scale Terrorist Attacks, Security Council
Told | UN Press.” UNSC Department of Public
Information. May 2013. https://press.un.org/
en/2013/sc11004.doc.htm.
USAID. 2016. “Niger Country Profile:Property
Rights and Resource Governance.” United
States Agency for International development.
https://www.land-links.org/wp-content/
uploads/2016/09/USAID_Land_Tenure_Niger_
Profile.pdf.
Venturi, Bernardo. 2017. “The EU and the
Sahel: a Laboratory of Experimentation for
the Security-Migration-Development Nexus”.
Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) Working
Paper 17(38). https://www.iai.it/sites/default/
files/iaiwp1738.pdf.
———. 2022. “The EU’s Diplomatic
Engagement in the Sahel”. Istituto Affari
Internazionali (IAI) Working Paper 22(08).
https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaip2208.
pdf.
Venturi, Bernardo and Nana Toure. 2020.
“The Great Illusion: Security Sector Reform in
the Sahel”. The International Spectator, 55(4):
54-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2020
.1835326.
Wilén, Nina. 2021. “Civil-Military Imbalance
in the Sahel.” Egmont Royal Institute for
International Relations, 2021. https://www.
egmontinstitute.be/civil-military-imbalance-in-
the-sahel/.
World Bank. 2021. “Employment in agri-
culture (% of total employment) (modeled ILO
estimate).” World Bank Open Data. https://
data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS.
—. 2023a. “Poverty headcount ratio at natio-
nal poverty lines (% of population).” World
Bank Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org/
indicator/SI.POV.NAHC.
—. 2023b. “Gini Index.” World Bank Open
Data. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/
SI.POV.GINI.
—. 2023c. “Worldwide Governance
Indicators.” World Bank. https://www.world-
bank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governan-
ce-indicators/interactive-data-access.