China’s Security Policy in the Sahel – Curse or Vision?

ONLINE PANEL DISCUSSION with Dr. Lina Benabdallah (Wake Forest University, CSIS), Dr. Ilaria Carrozza (PRIO) and Mr. Paul Nantulya (Africa Center for Strategic Studies)

Online Panel Discussion with Dr. Lina Benabdallah, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University and Senior Associate (Non-resident), Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Dr. Ilaria Carrozza, Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Mr. Paul Nantulya, Research Associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

For decades, the Sahel has been characterised by regular droughts and increased risk for conflict, which endanger large parts of the population living in Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Mauritania or Niger. The increasingly weak state structures not only favoured the emergence of transnational criminal organisations (TNCs), but also facilitated the rapid rise of Islamist extremist groups and movements.

In addition, insufficient access to education for the young population and the marginalisation of individual population groups facilitate the recruitment of new fighters among those countries. The discourse on Sino-African relations is still primarily dominated by China’s economic aspirations. However, China has been working for more than a decade to establish itself as a serious security actor on the African continent and has already made significant progress. Together with our two panelists we want to evaluate the Chinese, European and American strategy in terms of their security interest in the region and the continent to understand the political drivers that will have an impact on the path towards peace and stability. In the debate, we want to discuss in particular the following questions:

• Should Western countries pay more attention to the political drivers of conflicts in the Sahel?
• Why is the Sahel of strategic significance for a Chinese security interests and does China act to cement its own understanding of a great power in Africa?
• Are the United States essentially dealing with insurgencies rather than terrorism in the Sahel?
• How is the engagement of China and the EU assessed in the context of the new EU-Africa partnership negotiations?
• Which role does the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) play in this context?