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8313th Security Council Meeting: Peace Consolidation in West Africa
Mohamed ibn Chambas, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), described positive trends towards democratization, outlined in the most recent report of the Secretary-General (document S/2018/649) covering the period 1 January to 30 June. Those include the successful holding of democratic local elections in Guinea, local and municipal elections in the Gambia, and presidential, legislative and local elections in Sierra Leone, he said, also welcoming the abolition of the death penalty in Benin and Burkina Faso.
However, he warned, such positive developments continue to compete with the region’s volatile security situation. In the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, the spillover of the Malian crisis is increasingly affecting Burkina Faso and Niger, and terrorist groups continue to cause devastation throughout the region. Despite gains made by the Nigerian armed forces and a Multinational Joint Task Force — launched by the five countries of the Group of Five for the Sahel — Boko Haram and the West African province of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) remain active, often using women and children as suicide bombers.
“The complexity of recent attacks is a worrying outcome of West African and Sahelian Islamist groups reinforcing their linkages,” he said. Local insurgencies are also spreading, exacerbating intercommunal conflicts and undermining State authority, while environmental degradation and socioeconomic marginalization impact some 45 million people across the region. Also voicing concern over escalating violence between nomadic herders and agrarian communities and unrest in Cameroon’s English-speaking areas, he urged Member States to provide holistic support to the region and facilitate an enabling environment for the exercise of freedoms of expression and assembly.
Several Council members took the floor to welcome recent progress in the region and hail the good offices and other support activities of UNOWAS. Some also expressed alarm over persistent and complex regional challenges, with Côte d’Ivoire’s representative noting that, beyond terrorism and violent extremism, transnational organized crime, armed groups and the proliferation of conflicts pitting herders against farmers remain of serious concern. Insecurity spawned from terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, acts of piracy and armed robberies also continue unabated, he said.
The representative of Equatorial Guinea warned that challenges facing West Africa and the Sahel should be viewed as threats to the entire continent. Boko Haram’s violence has led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and the forcible displacement of thousands of people, as well as escalating food insecurity. Voicing concern over violent clashes between herders and nomadic groups, she called upon regional partners to undertake mediation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts to address those tensions in a long-term manner. She also joined other speakers in voicing support for efforts to recalibrate the United Nations integrated strategy for the Sahel and drive forward its implementation.
Bolivia’s delegate, echoing expressions of concern over the region’s security situation, also drew attention to development and rule of law challenges. Emphasizing that many of its current crises are consequences of interventionism and regime change policies associated with the 2011 military intervention in Libya, he said that operation had the unfortunate effect of pushing armed groups and weapons into the Sahel. Adding to those challenges today are the activities of organized criminal networks, he said, also expressing alarm over the continued recruitment of children by Boko Haram.
Also speaking were the representatives of Peru, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands.
