With its huge territory, the Sahel is presently a dense concentration of political, economic, environmental and demographic challenges. Their management, especially in the security field, requires setting priorities. Is the international community on that path?
Almost all over the planet, except where there is little enquiring about the phenomenon, jihadism, or « violent extremism », is a continuous threat to the nations’ social fabric. In African countries, terrorist activities undermine national communities and endanger the difficult construction of the nation-state.
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It is over with 2018. The New Year 2019 inherits the same structural problems: more conflicts and more migrations. Both are the results of armed radicals’ groups terrorist activities and governments’ ambiguous policies. Though indispensable, the external military presence is now in question.
In its review of the peacebuilding architecture, the Advisory Group of Experts introduced the language of “sustaining peace” as a counterpoint to the term “peacebuilding.” Although conceived as a comprehensive process, peacebuilding has come to be narrowly interpreted as time-bound, exogenous interventions that take place “after the guns fall silent” in fragile or conflict- affected states.2 Sustaining peace seeks to reclaim peace in its own right and detach it from the subservient affiliation with conflict that has defined it over the past four decades.3
