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This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard speaks with Crisis Group’s Africa Deputy Director Pauline Bax and Sahel expert Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim about the southward drift of jihadists from the Sahel to coastal West Africa and what can be done in response.

Originally published in The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

With the Multinational Joint Task Force, the Lake Chad basin states are combining efforts to defeat jihadist elements that endanger them all. It has won some victories but militants have recovered. To keep progressing, and secure more funds, the four armies should deepen their cooperation. 

Jihadist violence in the West African Sahel has now spread to the north of Burkina Faso. The response of Ouagadougou and its partners must go beyond the obvious religious and security dimensions of the crisis, and any solution must take into account deep-rooted social and local factors.

Leaders meeting at the Lake Chad basin summit must battle the region’s humanitarian and development needs to combat the insurgency

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a formidable record in its efforts to promote peace in a particularly turbulent region. Still, reform is essential to give the organisation new impetus, and is ever more urgent as insecurity worsens throughout the Sahel and Lake Chad regions.

West Africa is still paying the price for its poor response to the Ebola epidemic. Where an early response could have prevented the worst, failures on all levels allowed Ebola to spread, exposing a deep rift between the population and political class of the countries affected. Unless all actors learn from the crisis, a similar disaster may be just a matter of time.