The sidelines of the recent US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington could not have been more auspicious when looking beyond the military approach to tackling the scourge of terrorism blighting the Sahel and much of West Africa’s littoral states.
Renowned think tank, the Timbuktu Institute took part in a December 12 panel discussion on the political and security situation in this volatile region which has witnessed spates of attacks in countries such as Burkina Faso by jihadists who have since expanded their spheres of operation to cover other neighboring countries.
It is against this searing backdrop of increasing jihadist manoeuvres in West Africa especially Burkina Faso in recent months that the Global Fragility Act was launched by the United States, facilitating the International Republican Institute (IRI) to organize a panel on violent extremism ahead of the summit held from December 13th to 15th.
The IRI promotes the growth of political and economic freedoms, good governance and human rights around the world through citizen education and strengthening the values of democracy.
In his contribution to the discourse, the Timbuktu Institute’s director, Dr. Bakary Sambe while looking beyond dealing with the security imperatives for the region, outlines a preventive approach against violent extremism in coastal countries that would be made dependent on strengthening community resilience.
Dr. Sambe argues that given that the exclusively militaristic strategies have not yielded convincing results on the ground it was time to consider developing and applying a non-militaristic preventive approach to dealing with this security challenge in countries troubled by extremism but where such a new prevention ”is still possible…to give the dignity of solutions to endogenous community strategies”.
He says this would thoroughly complement and work in tandem with the military or all-security strategies that have so far shown little potency in dealing with jihadists and the threats they pose to communities in the Sahel.
Since 2016, the coastal countries of West Africa seem to have become the new expansion zone for jihadism through what the director of the Timbuktu Institute calls the “epicenter spillover phenomenon.”
He cites Benin, Togo, and Côte d’Ivoire as recent examples of countries targeted by multiple incursions.
The northernmost reaches of Togo and Cote d’Ivoire have been particularly vulnerable.
According to Dr. Sambe, it has therefore become unanimous that the work on strengthening community resilience through active prevention work is imperative to eliminating the social conditions which play into the hands of jihadists and their recruiting agents.
Bridging the gap between local perceptions and international conceptions
Dr. Sambe sees the role of the United States as crucial in guiding the international response to the security challenges in West Africa where perceptions of the problem are barely understood.
He says the world’s most powerful country is “an actor that can still gain the trust of local populations and communities with regard to its role in the development of prevention strategies in the G5 Sahel countries”.
The Timbuktu Institute boss encourages the United States to invest more in prevention and especially “the strengthening of community resilience by promoting endogenous initiatives to overcome the conflict between international conceptions and local perceptions”.
One of the strengths of the American approach in recent years has been to distinguish the prevention of violent extremism from the fight against terrorism, which ultimately aims to eliminate targets.
“But targets can regenerate if the structural causes that led to terrorism have not disappeared,” observes Dr. Sambe.
For these reasons, prevention of violent extremism “has the advantage of addressing its causes through means such as dialogue or good governance,” he adds.
He is convinced that the United States can be really useful to unravel the current context where Sahelian populations are increasingly doubtful of the merits of military interventions.
Moreover, as Dr. Bakary Sambe points out, “it will take a lot of energy and advocacy with the authorities to install and gain acceptance for a culture of prevention in coastal and West African countries where all-security strategies have dominated for years, even though they have not been able to produce the expected results”.
For a preventive method that effectively involves actors on the ground and especially local communities in coastal countries, IRI should “become more involved in this… by strengthening the work begun with the G5 Sahel and the Regional Cell for the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (CellRad) and extend this initiative to coastal countries,” Dr. Sambe concludes.
The event which attracted experts on West African political security was attended by IRI President Dan Twining and facilitated by Mr. Aboudou H. Berthé, Director of the Sahel and Coastal Countries Program.
Courtesy of the Timbuktu Institute
WN/as/APA