N°16 For a sustainable and common answer to Sahel’s challenges in the framework of a reinforced cooperation “Africa - Mediterranean - Europe”
Jean-Marc Chataîgner, Directeur général délégué de l’IRD Jean-Louis Guigou, Président de l’IPEMED Maxime Thibon, Conseiller scientifique et technique de l’Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel (OSS)
The information report of the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces regarding the official development assistance to Sahel of June 2016 starts with the following observation: Saharan-Sahelian spaces, located between North Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, have been in the spotlight for several years and are now facing a “unique geographical and human situation but also the rise of insecurity due to traffics and the emergence of terrorist groups that managed to make the most of the network logic and the prevailing mobility in the North of the region1”. In this context, development actors2 denounced the cost of inaction in Sahel several times. While France made significant and necessary security expenses in the region, everyone agrees that there will be no development without security, nor any security without development. In the face of this general observation and of the climate of pessimism that develops while challenges add up, international assistance actors must act in a coordinated manner in crisis zones and beyond regional borders.