Coalition for the Sahel: a videoconference for a point of progress

(Illustration) The entrance to a G5 Sahel command post in Sevaré, Mali on May 30, 2018. AFP / Sebastien Rieussec

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The very first ministerial meeting of the Coalition for the Sahel, bringing together the G5 Sahel countries, the European Union and international institutions, took place by videoconference this Friday, June 12. There were no significant announcements at the end of the meeting, but an overview of the initiatives already launched since the Pau summit last January.

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The French government co-organized, yesterday Friday, the first ministerial meeting of the Coalition for the Sahel, with around forty participants gathered by videoconference around the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian. An initiative announced in Pau in January and officially launched in late April in Brussels . The objective is to bring together, to make them more effective, all international initiatives around four “pillars”: the fight against terrorism, the strengthening of national armies, support for the redeployment of the State and development aid .

Read also : At the summit of Pau, Paris and the G5 Sahel close ranks against the jihadists

1st ministerial meeting of @CoalitionSahel with more than 45 ministers and representatives of the main international organizations in #Sahel: together we express our determination to act for security and development in the Sahel in support of the efforts of # G5. pic.twitter.com/OUvLehOEyq

  Jean-Yves Le Drian (@JY_LeDrian) June 12, 2020

Ismaël Ould Cheikh Ahmed's alerts

This meeting was an opportunity to take stock of the state of the pledges for financing the investment program to fight poverty in the Sahel. The promised aid (almost two million euros) is slow to arrive. A situation that deplores, on behalf of the G5 Sahel countries, the Mauritanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ismaël Ould Cheikh Ahmed, Chairman of the G5-Sahel Council of Ministers, at the microphone of our correspondent in Nouakchott, Salem Mejbour

“  In the Sahel, the security situation is deteriorating visibly and with rare constancy. The violence spreads every day to new territories. But let there be no mistake. The security threat that is sweeping the Sahel is not only a local problem, it is of global dimension and scope. It therefore deserves a global response. This is why your presence today and your commitment alongside us are essential. I should point out, however, that the mobilization of funds to finance the priority investment program, which is so essential for our populations and for the fight against terrorism, is not yet up to expectations. 

Second message: today, we all undergo, without any discrimination, the murderous assaults of the Covid-19. For us, in the Sahel, the Covid-19 adds to an already darkened clinical picture. We are now facing all shocks at the same time. Climate shock with the rainfall deficit, security shock with terrorism, economic shock with the melting prices of our export products and the economic crisis generated by the Covid-19.

Today, to cope with this pandemic and its incalculable consequences, Africa and the Sahel in particular, need new liquidity to revive a largely affected economy! The Sahel needs more than ever an outright debt cancellation  . ”

In a joint statement issued ahead of the meeting, United Nations humanitarian agencies and several large non-governmental organizations expressed concern over the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the Sahel countries. They call for "concerted and reinforced action" to come to the aid of the most vulnerable, stressing the need for respect for human rights and access to the civilian population for humanitarian organizations. A civil society coalition, for its part, had called for the protection of civilians and access to justice to be placed at the center of concerns, drawing on local civil societies.

Why it does not work ?

Listen to the interview with Jean-Hervé Jézéquel from the ICG, joined in Dakar by François Mazet

RFI

Why are these international initiatives around the Sahel not working? “  Basically what is missing is a real reflection, precisely, on that. Why it does not work, questions Jean-Hervé Jezequel, director of the Sahel project at International crisis group in Dakar, joined by François Mazet. I think that the first thing is to realize that the very substance of this strategy is to promote the return of a State which is at the very basis of the crisis. That is to say, the international strategy is to bring back to the regions of insurrection a State which is very often rejected.

In my opinion, the change will not come from outside. No one outside can change the governance of the Sahel. These are the Sahelian forces. It is the Sahelian actors who can promote the change of their own governance, their own economic development. What must be placed at the center, for international actors, is support for the forces of change.

Seven years after the crisis, I think there is a need to question. Perhaps we should not necessarily question the people, but the ways of doing things. It's clear. And a way of effectively changing the ways of doing things, very often it also involves a change of generations  ”.

The next coalition summit is announced in the presence of the heads of state concerned in Nouakchott in July.

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