The Council of the EU approved, on Monday 19 April, without debate, conclusions on the new integrated EU strategy for the Sahel, which confirm the importance of a solid and long-term partnership between the EU and the Sahel and of stepping up this partnership through an ambitious EU strategy setting the framework for its policies and actions in this region.
These conclusions were adopted without debate by the European Foreign Ministers (see EUROPE 12700/13). The new strategy will take over from the one adopted in 2011.
Since 2012, the Sahel has faced a profound security crisis that has hampered its development and, together with other long-term trends such as climate change, demographic pressure, the access to natural resources and epidemic risks, risks wiping out the progress made in recent decades.
Between 2011 and 2020, the EU has mobilised all instruments at its disposal, from humanitarian aid to security forces, to support the Sahel populations, and now intends to intensify its political efforts through a new, ambitious, inclusive and flexible strategy based on the principle of mutual accountability with Sahel partner authorities.
In line with international coordination efforts within the Sahel Coalition, launched in 2020, the EU emphasises the importance of a “civilian and political leap forward” focusing both on short-term stabilisation and long-term prospects for sustainable social, environmental and economic development, above and beyond military involvement.
The new strategy will focus on the fight against terrorism and strengthen the principle of mutual accountability by transposing the logic of the Sahel Coalition. In other words, “the EU wishes to place its action in a partnership based on the responsibility of each partner to fulfil its commitments”, says the EU Council.
Good governance and the Rule of law, human rights, restoration of State authority to the entire territory, and the fight against terrorism are priorities.
The EU will keep the fight against poverty and the other UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the heart of its action.
It will encourage increased sustainable private investment to support the Sahelian economies and their diversification.
The EU also wishes to continue to promote successful cooperation in the field of migration by building on established partnerships.
It will continue to work with its Sahelian partners to strengthen the multilateral system.
In addition, it will continue its humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations.
The main framework for this new strategy is the five G5 Sahel States - Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad. However, it places the EU’s action in the wider context of regional and cross-border issues, from the Libyan situation to insecurity in the Lake Chad basin and the Gulf of Guinea, from the west coast to the dynamics of East Africa, taking into account the interweaving of the various regional, continental and global challenges.
See the conclusions: https://bit.ly/3aq8Thw (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)