DIIS Report

The European powers and the Sahel-Maghreb Crisis

Europe should engage North African powers more actively when addressing jihadism and migration

In this new DIIS report senior researcher at DIIS, Rasmus Alenius Boserup and Research Director at Sciences Po, Luis Martinez, analyse how European policy-makers have recently come to perceive the Sahel as a threat to Europe’s own security and stability. Marking the end of the Sahel-Maghreb Research Platform – a research project funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and hosted by DIIS in collaboration with Voluntas Advisory – the report draws on input and analysis provided by an international team of experts and scholars associated to the project.

Focusing on the most significant recent developments with trans-national jihadism and cross-border migration, the report argues that, although European powers spearheaded by France have succeeded in reducing a number of the most immediate threats to the survival of states and societies in some of the most vulnerable parts of the Sahel, the international community has failed to generate the conditions that would foster long-term peace and development. Hence, the report suggests that the European powers should look for ways to inject life into the strategic objective of bringing the North African powers into play when attempting to solve the crisis in the Sahel.

Europe and the Sahel-Maghreb Crisis
Europe and the Sahel-Maghreb Crisis