Moussa Mara is former Prime Minister of Mali from April 2014 to January 2015.
The Sahel has been in the international news for several years due to the succession of security, institutional and humanitarian crises in which it is the scene.
The occurrence of coups d'état in the region, more or less followed by strategic upheavals, has further confirmed the Sahel as one of the points of tension on the planet.
The current upheavals have factual and circumstantial aspects but also deep structural causes that must be addressed if we want to avoid the multiplication of failed states and destructured countries in the Sahel.
Climate change has had a strong impact on the region since almost independence.
The heavy droughts of the 70s and 80s, the loss of significant plant cover (in 40 years, Mali has lost 2/3 of its forests, or more than 9 million hectares), the drying lakes, etc.
are phenomena known in the Sahel well before global awareness of climate issues.
Natural resources are seriously depleting and this is becoming all the more problematic as, at the same time, populations are increasing sharply.
The Sahelian population is the most dynamic in the world.
There we find two of the three youngest countries in the world.
Average annual population growth rates are above 4%.
In the absence of sufficient economic growth, populations cannot hope for a significant increase in their standard of living and thus remain, for the most part, in heartbreaking poverty.
This results, for countries and their States, in a devastating “scissors” effect for stability and social cohesion.
Urbanization, favored by ambient poverty, particularly in rural areas, is neither organized nor economically transformative.
It is suffered, essentially for the benefit of the capitals which become powder kegs under the effect of real urban areas of poverty, despair and frustrations of all kinds.
In the Sahelian capitals, there is a proliferation of precarious neighborhoods that are under-equipped, or even unequipped, and which become real traps for the populations who settle there.
State weaknesses are widened by significant governance inadequacies against a backdrop of elite corruption.
These fraudulent attitudes are all justifications for destabilizing actions.
Moussa Mara
Sahelian countries are often characterized by large territories, sparsely populated in many places, which poor states have difficulty covering.
The administration is not sufficiently present, particularly in peripheral areas.
This feeds resentments supported by the feeling of injustice or inequity.
One of the foundations of rebellions, here and there, is found in this reality.
State weaknesses are widened by significant governance inadequacies against a backdrop of elite corruption.
These fraudulent attitudes end up worsening the social climate, weakening and discrediting public authorities and are all justifications for destabilizing actions.
This with all the more energy as the Sahelian populations present major deficits in terms of human capital.
The rejuvenation of the population, another impact of demographics, is generating increasingly large flows of young people arriving on the job market, more than 80% of whom are unqualified.
In Mali, more than 300,000 jobs would need to be created each year to reduce growing unemployment and reverse its endemic trend.
Educational systems were disrupted by the structural adjustment plans of the 1980s. Then the large number of children to be supervised obliges States to use the few resources available to accommodate the numbers, to the detriment of the quality of the education. 'education.
The resulting low level of education further reduces the chances of graduates in the context described above, particularly in urban areas.
It is imperative that these countries work to face their challenges.
State strengthening is the first.
They will not hesitate to find the means to achieve this with their own resources first.
Moussa Mara
The Sahelian countries are often nations with a glorious past, having sheltered illustrious civilizations, creating among the populations a feeling of pride in this sublimated past.
The magnification of this glorious past gradually takes populations hostage, overwhelmed by the present.
They become impervious to any questioning and sensitive to manipulation, conspiracy theories or even the quest for scapegoats.
Information and Communication Technologies create an ideal framework for manipulation.
They are also factors of frustration through the globalization of information that they promote.
They offer opportunities to express these frustrations and become factors in the radicalization of populations.
This will create the possibility of these feelings being exploited by certain political leaders who will manage to provoke uprisings on peripheral issues, further masking the structural challenges.
The situation in the Sahel thus becomes complex when we add some impacts of the international geopolitical context, the presence of terrorist groups which threaten fragile social balances and institutional instability which handicaps political prospects.
It is imperative that these countries work to face their challenges.
State strengthening is the first.
They will not hesitate to find the means to achieve this with their own resources first.
It is necessary to put in place internal dynamics in order to redefine political configurations, foster consensus to establish new standards of governance, and thus achieve virtuous modes of governance.
They must, without doubt, internalize security, political and social solutions which can open the way to more endogenous institutional and political rules than those practiced until now: more decentralization, more content for secularism and room for religions, promotion of national languages and cultures, inculturation of democracy and democratic practices, more listening to the forces of civil society and more inclusiveness in governance.
Each country in the Sahel must find its way in this dynamic.
We need to give him space to do that.
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However, no Sahelian country has the means to deal with the structural causes of the crises described above.
Significant financial efforts are necessary to address the profound challenges facing the region in the distant future.
Massive investments must be made in infrastructure, energy, education – training, economic opportunities, etc.
We need a real Marshall Plan for the Sahel if we want to help it emerge from the misery in which it has been mired for several decades.
This echoes a recent appeal by China's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Dai Bing, who asked the international community, during an intervention before the Security Council on Thursday, January 11, to massively help the countries of the Sahel and West Africa to enable them to establish peace and stability, fight against terrorism and develop the economy.
It also echoes the request made at the time by the Secretary General of the United Nations himself.
It is desirable that these appeals be heard.