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With a few notable exceptions like Ghana and Senegal, conflict and political tension have been defining features of West Africa’s history since the end of the Cold War.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Sierra Leone and Liberia experienced decade-long wars, where the exploitation and weakening of central governments led to state collapses. In the early 2000s, the Ivory Coast went through civil war between the north and south of the country, and Boko Haram, a jihadist terrorist organization in north-eastern Nigeria, emerged. Despite these developments, the countries on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea achieved increasing stability in the first decade of the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the last decade has to a large extent been defined by conflict in the Sahel. Ethnic confrontation and an alarming escalation of violent extremism have characterized the conflict in Mali but is also increasingly noticeable in Niger and Burkina Faso.
Political and security dynamics on the Coast of Guinea and in the Sahel are often debated separately, but developments in both areas have implications for West Africa as whole.
The challenges the region is facing are integrated. They include trafficking, youth unemployment, corruption, and, in some countries, weak governance, piracy has also become an increasing challenge in the Gulf of Guinea.
This seminar explores the complex dynamics of conflicts across the West African sub-region both on land and at sea. It looks at the region as a whole, and regional as well as global responses to conflict in West Africa, from Mali and the broader Sahel, over the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) role in peace-making, to the increasing challenge of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
The seminar is organized by DIIS together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and the Royal Danish Defence College. It is organized as part of the DIIS-based research programme,Domestic Security Implications of UN Peacekeeping in Ghana (D-SIP). D-SIP is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
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