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The Sahel stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It encompasses around ten countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.
The region faces enormous security challenges. Since 2013, violence linked to armed groups, including terrorist organizations, has forced more than 2.9 million people to flee their homes. About 14 million people face food insecurity and nearly 31.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
A dozen security and development strategies, and several civil and military operations, have been implemented by states and intergovernmental organizations to combat insecurity.
The G5 Sahel Joint Force, a task force launched by Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania in 2017, remains one of the most popular initiatives in the fight against insecurity in the Sahel. Its creation raised hopes in the fight against violent extremism and organized crime in the region.
The creation of the force reflected an effort at transregional governance of security issues in the Sahel. It presented a new opportunity for security.
However, the actual military value of the force in countering these threats remains to be determined. There have been a few small tactical victories, such as Mauritania mobilizing its army to secure its borders. But, for the most part, the task force itself has been ineffective.
The security situation in the Sahel is such that it is difficult for a national army or a military coalition, however sophisticated, to be decisive against terrorism.
Cooperation between Sahelian countries has long been difficult because of inter-state tensions and the fragile relations of mistrust that result from it. For example, Mauritania often accuses Mali of not being tough on terrorist groups.
A number of factors have hampered the efforts of the G5 Sahel Joint Force to make the region more secure. The first is that it was built from pre-existing national armies. The structural and operational challenges it has faced are mainly those of the States and national armies which have set up the working group.
He has also been severely constrained when it comes to funding, which means he does not have the material means to do decent work. Other difficulties it faces are the fact that the region is vast, an area far too large for the intended task force of 5,000 men.
In my opinion, even the continued and multifaceted support of several international actors, including the French force Barkhane, MINUSMA in Mali and the European Union, will not guarantee success.
The G5 Sahel Joint Force faces major challenges. The political will displayed by the member countries appears to be out of step with the real capabilities of their armies.
The holes
The lack of financial resources remains one of the main obstacles to the force’s ability to function fully. Four of the members of the working group (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger) are among the ten poorest countries in the world.
Stable funding has not been secured under UN Chapter VII, which supports efforts to end and stop acts of aggression.
The deficit was also not covered by contributions from member countries of the working group or from national defense budgets. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have increased their national defense budgets. But corruption has meant that military efficiency has not kept pace with financial investments. Money that has been mobilized through the defense budget or granted through capacity building programs has been wasted due to poor governance.
Finally, the G5 Sahel Joint Force relies heavily on voluntary contributions from international actors. But these commitments fluctuate depending on geopolitical circumstances and interests.
The result of these failures is that the Sahelian armies have not been able to protect their populations. This, in turn, has led to an increase in terrorist attacks, community self-defense militias and intercommunal massacres. The Dozo militias in central Mali and the Mossi Kolgweogo community militias in Burkina Faso have carried out numerous attacks on Fulani villages in revenge for crimes committed by Fulani militias and terrorist groups.
For their part, terrorist organizations have taken advantage of the vulnerability of national armies to strengthen their influence and their capacity to cause harm.
These groups are well armed with weapons torn from the armed forces or obtained through the illicit trafficking of weapons stolen from military garrisons.
Small victories, big challenges
Since its creation in 2017, the G5 Sahel Joint Force has carried out numerous operations against terrorist organizations. More recently, the concentration of its military activities, and those of Barkhane in Liptako-Gourma, the tri-border zone between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, has loosened the grip of terrorist groups.
And for its part, Mauritania has mobilized its army to monitor its borders, which are now secure.
But these are small victories in the context of the challenge.
Countering violent extremism in the Sahel requires sufficient, well-trained and well-equipped troops in an area of nearly 4 million square kilometers – the combined area of the five countries involved in the task force.
However, as in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, military personnel are still limited. Considering, for example, a ratio of 20 to 25 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants, the regions of Gao, Kidal, Mopti and Timbuktu in Mali would need to mobilize a total number of soldiers of between 90,000 and 112,500. three times more than the soldiers of the Malian army, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali and the French Operation Barkhane combined – 33,000 soldiers.
At its peak, the G5 Sahel Joint Force is expected to number 5,000 troops. It will not be enough.
Resources are so limited that their deployment across countries itself creates vulnerabilities. Chad has a much larger and stronger military force. He was engaged in several military operations both at home and abroad. But to deploy men in a theater of operations, the Chadian army is obliged to release another. In August, half of the troops deployed as part of the task force were withdrawn for strategic reasons, according to Ndjamena.
After that
France recently announced that it would withdraw its troops from the Sahel and end Operation Barkhane in 2022. The implementation of these decisions will be a turning point in the fight against terrorism in the region. The question is whether Takuba, a recently created European training-focused working group, will lead to regional ownership of counterinsurgency initiatives in the Sahel.
Certainly, it is very early to make projections. Since Takuba represents another military force in the region, this confirms the priority given to the state-centered approach to security. This approach succeeded in protecting Sahelian states like Mali and Burkina Faso from collapse, but it did not translate into security for the populations.
Moda Dieng receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
By Moda Dieng, Associate Professor, School of Conflict Studies, Saint Paul University / Saint Paul University
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