Africa Up Close

Participants from the G5 Sahel Investment Conference in September 2018, a joint conference by the International Republican Institute, the G5 Sahel Permanent Secretariat, and regional youth leaders which aimed to publicize economic investment opportunities for young people in the Sahel. Photo courtesy of the International Republican Institute. 

In December 2018, leaders of the G5 Sahel Joint Force Member States—Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Niger—and international donors gathered for a coordination conference in Nouakchott, Mauritania to orchestrate funding for the Joint Force’s Priority Investment Program (PIP) aimed at addressing the Sahel region’s chronic violence and fragility. The G5’s PIP reflects the strategic intention to operationalize the Joint Force as an instrument both of security and development—a strategy that would adequately address the complex socio-economic, political, and climate change challenges driving instability across the region.

Former President of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, speaks at the United Nations General Assembly. (Photo via Flickr Commons)

Introduction: The Launch of a Campaign

On May 16, 2018, a group of Ghanaian civil society organizations (CSOs)[i] launched a campaign requesting the Government of Ghana to seek the extradition of Yahya Jammeh, the former president of The Gambia, to face justice in Ghana for the 2005 massacre of 44 Ghanaian migrants in The Gambia. The campaign, “Jammeh2JusticeGhana,” has the primary objective of persuading the Government of Ghana to extradite Yahya Jammeh’s from Equatorial Guinea in order to prosecute him in Ghana. This campaign is a part of a larger effort to seek accountability for Jammeh’s alleged crimes and human rights violations. The launch of this campaign, hosted by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), follows a wider campaign effort by The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations and other local and international human rights organizations[ii] to ensure that Jammeh and members of his regime are brought to trial in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Nigeria’s National Assembly. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.  

The Nigerian Senate, through the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Alhaji Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, recently announced that it was proposing a law that would seek the death penalty for perpetrators of hate speech. Skeptics thought that the legislative body was again embarking on a familiar, self-serving endeavor to further impunity in the country. Some may laugh at this proposal, but it is very shocking and alarming that such a proposal is being made in a growing democracy like Nigeria, as well as at a time when other countries across the world are making efforts to roll back the use of the death penalty. Merely proposing such legislation speaks volumes to the current state of the Nigerian Senate. Especially in the context of the recent corruption scandal, in which members of the legislature were found illegally pocketing about USD$50,000 that they allotted to themselves monthly, in a country where 65 percent of the population survives on less than one dollar a day amidst pervasive poverty.

Fulani herders and cattle in Nigeria. Photo courtesy of Dr. Mary Gillham Archive Project via Flickr Commons. 

The sporadic and ongoing violent conflicts between herdsmen and farmers in rural communities in Nigeria is a serious threat to human security and development in the country. The conflicts also have a strong potential to spread to other neighboring countries in West Africa, but the international community has remained silent on the possibility of the conflict spreading. On New Year’s Day, Fulani herdsmen killed about 73 people in a farming community in Benue state. The victims included women, children, and young and old residents of the community. An arrest or prosecution has yet to happen, and similar violence has occurred across the country since then. A slow response from the government has led to suspicions in the media that the government is in support of the Fulani militiamen involved in the violence. Furthermore, it is alleged that some of the Fulani militiamen migrated from other countries in West Africa to carry out the attack, due to a shared ethnicity that is present in several other countries across the sub-region.

Mining at the Tarkwa Mine in Ghana. Photo via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Galamsey”[1]

Africa is endowed with numerous natural resources including gold, ore, copper, bauxite, manganese, and timber among others. Formal extractive companies do not offer much employment to local people, pushing them to find employment through illegal mining practices. The influx of small-scale and illegal miners, mostly Chinese to Africa, has worsened the illegal mining activities on the continent with migrant miners abusing mining laws and mining practices. Mining communities in Africa are experiencing numerous detrimental impacts environmentally, socially, and economically from mining. According to a report by Oxfam Australia, mining can negatively affect people by forcing them from their homes and farms and preventing them from accessing clean land and water.[2]

STUCK IN THE SAND: Mauritania’s continued democratic development depends on a few key decisions. A car lodged in the desert in Tunisia. Photo by fjaviernunez, Creative Commons via Pixabay.

Mauritania has reached a pivotal point in its post-2008 coup political transformation, when military officers overthrew the country’s first democratically elected government. The country is situated where the Maghreb states of North Africa meet the Sahel states south of the Sahara. Neither wholly Arab/Berber nor wholly Black West African, its history and culture are deeply entwined with both regions. Outsiders often mistakenly relegate the country to a secondary status; however, if Mauritanian leaders make the right decisions on three important issues, the country can become a democratic development leader in the greater Maghreb-Sahel region, just as it has been a leader on counterterrorism. These three issues are the government’s continued fidelity to Mauritania’s constitution, full government partnership with civil society, and renewal of the country’s institutions by full political participation in fresh elections by all democratically-inclined parties.

The surprise ousting of Blaise Compaore in October 2014 is a testament to the power of political resistance and the democratic will. However, the coup represents only the early stages of a political transition whose outcomes depend largely on the actions of Burkina Faso’s military. These events also raise serious questions about the role of international actors in domestic political transitions, particularly where economic or security interests are involved.

Youth unemployment has increasingly become a threat to stability and peace in Sub-Saharan Africa, as the recent positive economic growth observed in many African countries did not stimulate job growth opportunities for younger generations. In late January 2014, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Dakar-based think tank IPAR invited 100 policymakers, researchers, NGOs and representatives of youth organizations to participate in an international conference entitled “Putting youth to work in Sub‐Saharan Africa” to reflect and share perspectives on policy options to tackle the issue of youth unemployment. This conference was hosted in partnership with the WAEMU Commission, the African Development Bank, the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), and OECD.  While Africa is a very diverse continent, it was evident that the issue of youth unemployment arises almost everywhere. This article will analyze the case of Senegal to better understand how this issue may affect stability in the country.

African countries, generally and historically speaking, have a track record of weak performance on all fronts of development. Many African countries are now poorer than they were at independence. The continent is often described in and associated with negative terms like conflict, corruption, poverty, and disease. Many are often referred to as ‘failed’ states. In response to the many development challenges facing the continent, international development partners, notably the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank, have proffered several reforms on the continent. Programs such as economic liberalization, democratization, decentralization, and public sector reorganization have been implemented, yet overall, recent assessment reports (e.g. The World Bank and The African Development Bank) have recorded mixed results.

On the evening of March 21st, 2012 I was sharing dinner with a prominent Malian journalist at Comme Chez Soi, a popular French restaurant in Bamako. It was my last meal before catching the midnight flight back to Washington D.C. I had spent the previous month working on a proposal focused on increasing stability and countering violent extremism in northern Mali. During this time, the Taureg-led National Movement for the Liberation of l’Azawad (MNLA), emboldened by highly trained soldiers, arms caches, and heavy artillery from Libya, were overtaking the ill equipped Malian army. Conspiracy theories were mounting, but no one seemed to comprehend the enormity of what was on the horizon. By the time I landed in Washington D.C., President Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) had been overthrown, the constitution was suspended, and shortly thereafter, the MNLA unilaterally declared the independence of northern Mali (Aziwad). Islamic extremist groups such as, Ansar al Din and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), quickly capitalized on the political and security vacuum and began imposing Shariah law on the traditionally moderate populations. This raised concerns that northern Mali would become a training, recruitment, and staging ground for terrorist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). When MUJAO threatened to seize major cities in the south and turn Mali into an Islamist state, this fear was heightened triggering rapid military intervention by the French.