Flickr/David Stanley. Some rights reserved.
A major regional crisis
Since the sparking of the Malian crisis in 2012 – which saw most of northern Mali almost falling into the hands of terrorist groups – a profusion of security analyses of the country and the Sahel in general has largely emphasised the issues of terrorism and organised crime.
While perfectly valid, thorough security analyses of the Sahel must also include other thorny intertwined issues such as climate change, galloping population growth and poor economic growth. These, if not dealt with rapidly and adequately, could not only descend into major internal crises, but plunge the entire region into an abyssal chaos. Four landlocked countries, namely Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, remain of particular concern for the continent at large and especially the north-west Africa region.
