All that naturally leads up to an important question: if anything goes wrong, or if the electoral results are not accepted as legitimate, what will the army do? In Burkina Faso, where the army has been very much downplayed under former president Blaise Compaoré, there isn’t really a risk of it playing a detrimental role in a post-election context. That is not the case in Niger, where the army is on the one hand a respected institution, but whose leadership has also come under a lot of negative scrutiny for money and weapon mismanagement, human rights violations and extrajudicial killings against local civilians. In this context, the army freeing itself from its obligations towards its civilian electorate could be a dangerous prospect.
A new 22.6 million euro budget was approved from the EU Trust Fund for Africa, in order to help stabilize the situation. What is your assessment of the EU's contribution to the region?
The EU’s cooperation with the Sahel does not stop at this budget. The EU has also announced that it would give 92 million euros to strengthen the response against coronavirus in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. All in all, it is doing a lot to be perceived as a reliable partner that can bring short term responses to the most urgent needs of the population. However, there are increasing worries that most of this budgetary support might have a highly detrimental impact. There is a significant multiplication of actors and NGOs in the humanitarian landscape in Africa, and granted, EU funding is crucial for them. However, the success and actual impact of this financial outpour is hardly straightforward, and often exposes the degree of miscoordination and mismanagement between local actors.
Funding that has been allocated to curbing the migration flows is a typical example. The EU made a number of mistakes in its conception of migration policies in the Sahel, which turned out to have significantly harmful consequences. The criminalization of migration in the region ended up making it more costly overall, dangerous and less possible to control by authorities. It facilitated a climate that is repressive of migration flows, but based on narratives of good governance and humanitarian needs. Yet as long as migration remains a government priority across the region it is a sure way to obtain funding and diplomatic support from the EU.
If the technical support that is given to local partners ends up being diverted by a kleptocratic and corrupt elite, it means that you’re creating a new rent out of migration. The same goes for the aid allocated to the fight against Covid-19 and terrorism (or the next crisis). The EU’s current approach echoes these same strategic mistakes, and risks reinforcing the same ill-functioning structures and practices, and in turn, strengthening the root causes behind a possible uprising within the army ranks.
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