By Madi Jobarteh
The core Sahel countries are Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania. As the UN convenes what it calls the Sahel Governance Forum in The Gambia, four of these core Sahel countries are under military rule, while Mauritania is a fledgling ‘democracy’. When extended, and depending on context, the Sahel also contains Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Sudan and Eritrea are classified as eastern Sahel zone, while Northern Nigeria and Cameroon are also often included due to the Lake Chad Basin crisis.
The common characteristic in these countries is bad governance. Most, if not all of the Sahel countries struggle with weak or fragile institutions, limited service delivery, and weak rule of law. These have led to a cycle of political instability with wave of coups disrupting constitutional governance and strained relations with Ecowas and international partners. Amidst this quagmire is the very low public trust and confidence in governments due to unchecked and uncontrolled corruption, exclusion, and lack of transparency and accountability.
Today, there exists widespread poverty and inequality across Sahel countries which rank among the lowest on the UNDP’s Human Development Index.
UN figures state that more than 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, with rural communities hardest hit. A dire humanitarian crisis unfolds in the region where over 35 million people requires humanitarian aid. Food insecurity and malnutrition are chronic. These dire conditions do not even include the ravages of climate change. Infrastructure gaps such as limited roads, energy, and digital connectivity hinder economic integration and trade in the Sahel region. Human rights violations are endemic.
In the forum’s concept paper, the UN recognised the “inter-connected nature of the Sahel crisis” prompting the creation of the United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS) in the mid-2010s. The UN said the Banjul forum was an attempt to revive UNISS and “the aim is to bolster attention to investment in development, using a nexus approach that addresses the humanitarian, peace, and security nexus with a focus on the people.” It states further that, “It lends emphasis to strengthening good governance at all levels while supporting regional organisations in their coordination and regulatory mandates as key dimensions of the UNISS.”
It must be said that apart from the UN, several development actors have been quite busy in the Sahel region at least from 2000 to date. These include the EU, AU, and Ecowas as well as many Western governments individually. Russia and China are new entrants while numerous domestic and international NGOs have always been key players in the region. In 2019, Oxfam revealed that the wealthiest 1% of West Africans owned more than everyone else in the region combined, noting that West Africa’s governments were the least committed to reducing inequality than all other regions of the African continent.
In the course of time, billions of dollars have been spent on initiatives across the Sahel ranging from agriculture, infrastructure to governance and security and among others. The region itself is highly endowed with natural resources. The UN states,
“The Sahel is inherently rich in natural and human resources… The presence of abundant natural resources – including oil, natural gas, gold, phosphates, and minerals – along Africa’s largest aquifers, as well as the continent’s largest aquifers surface waters such as Lake Chad and the Niger River, strengthens the region’s potential for transformative socio-economic development… Unfortunately, the wealth of the Sahel has not sufficiently materialised to the benefit of the populations due to the persisting insecurity and political instability.”
Given these resources, and the number and kind of interventions, actors and the huge amounts of money invested in the Sahel region, how come bad governance, underdevelopment, corruption, poverty, and insecurity continue to characterise the countries and peoples of this region? It begs the question as to whether this forum will bring any value positively more than the previous and existing interventions? Is this forum the way forward or should the conversation or perspective be something else? How do we ensure good governance, sustainable development and peace and stability in the region? What has been the problem of the Sahel, really?
As the forum opens in Banjul, the host president is seeking a third term in office after the removal of a two-decades long autocratic regime in 2017. The presidents and past leaders invited to this forum have not left a legacy worth taking home. For example, while former president Goodluck Jonathan, whose foundation is a partner, is remembered for conceding defeat and preserving democracy in Nigeria, he is also blamed for major governance lapses that allowed insecurity and corruption to continue to flourish in his country. Thus, in the context of the wider West African subregion, one wonders how this forum would make a difference or is different from previous and existing initiatives.
Since gaining independence more than half a century now, the Sahel countries and West Africa as a whole has remained a basket case, albeit enjoying immense support from development partners and donor countries. Yet, these countries and the region continue to lag behind in all governance and development indicators. While there has been no shortage of multimillion dollar well written, evidence based strategic plans, programs, projects, initiatives, and action plans, these countries constantly and consistently continue to grapple with bad governance, conflict, corruption, and widespread poverty. The situation has now become even more complex in the face of the growing and uncertain global geopolitics, which is turning the region into a major theatre of play. Once again, can this forum make a difference? How? What is the alternative?
While I may welcome this forum and give it the benefit of doubt that it could make a difference, I would still state that to make it really meaningful, the conversation cannot be the same oft-repeated phrases, slogans, titles, terminologies and with the same old resolutions about democracy, governance, and development. If this forum is to register success, it must speak to the issues bluntly and directly and name names. It must be markedly different from previous forums and tired conversations.
This means the forum should speak to the need for strengthening state legitimacy and public trust by addressing the issue of state as an institution and an instrument. In discussing state legitimacy, we must question and analyse the nature and purpose of the state in Africa, and the Sahel in particular. For whom does the state exist? Citizens or officials who occupy the state? What is evident is that since the end of colonialism, the post-independence state has been captured by the elite who work in it, using public office and public wealth for their benefit first and foremost at the detriment and exclusion of their people. The state in the Sahel is not only corrupt but also predatory, which takes resources from the people through taxes, loans and grants as they award themselves salaries, allowances, incentives and other benefits yet not accountable to anything and anyone.
It is in the context of this colonial and predatory state that elected and appointed public officials do not wish to surrender their positions even in the face of incompetence and corruption. African presidents aided and abetted by their technocrats, cronies and allies in parliament do not wish to leave office because of their insatiable desire to accumulate wealth and the fear of losing that wealth when not in public office.
It is for this reason that this forum must address the issues of ethical leadership and presidential term limits as mechanisms to end self-perpetuation in power as a means to prevent or limit corruption which is endemic across the region. Presidential term limits are helpful in awakening the consciousness of politicians that the road has a definite end in sight hence serve to temper one to abide by the law, hence ethical leadership. For that matter, the forum should come up with a clear resolution that no president should serve more than two terms. Those presidents currently in their second or third terms should not seek another term in office. Presidential term limits should be constitutionalised and entrenched as they lead to ethical leadership eventually by design or default.
Public institutions and officials should uphold and abide by the rule of law to curb abuse of office, disregard of the law, and corruption, and to ensure performance and delivery. At the same time, there should be urgent judicial reform to uphold the independence of the judiciary, ensure affordable access to justice, and protect human rights violations. The forum should make clear resolutions on anti-corruption and accountability mechanisms by addressing the independence of independent bodies and ensuring public sector transparency and accountability. Civilian oversight of security forces is paramount to depoliticize the police, miliary and intelligence agencies and prevent them from being weaponized against citizens. There should be strong parliamentary oversight over the armed and security agencies to ensure their efficiency, independence, and professionalism.
Since independence, power and development have been severely concentrated in the centre and in the capital city area. The forum should speak directly to the issue of decentralisation and local governance. This is to come up with clear policies and mechanisms to effectively and practically devolve most powers and functions from the centre to the regions and ensure executive non-interference with local councils. In this regard, the issue of inclusive citizen participation in governance and policy processes is paramount. Until now, most Sahel populations are excluded from their national governance and development processes for many reasons and by many factors found in laws, institutions, processes, and practices – again reflecting to the nature of the state as discussed above. Above all, the problem of lack of decentralization lies in the lack of political will in the executive and legislative branches which do not wish to surrender power that they think would make them lose privileges and power.
The Sahel region has no excuse to be in the situation it is in. There is nothing inherently wrong with the land, people, location, or geography to warrant the deplorable situation of the region. Fundamentally, the problem with the Sahel, like the individual countries, is the problem of leadership and the state. International organisations such as the UN, AU and Ecowas continue to hobnob with the leadership as it is by seeking to understand and adjust to them at the exclusion of the populations. This longstanding approach is counterproductive and has only served to entrench the predatory and corrupt state in the hands of unethical leaders. This has to change if change has to come to the Sahel. The time has come for the region to be engaged and looked at from the perspective and interest of the ordinary people and not from the interest and perspective of the politicians and elites in charge of the institutions of governance and development.
Towards A Better Sahel.
