Africa Label Group (ALG) successfully completed a comprehensive community conflicts assessment in the Sahel region for the International Republican Institute (IRI). This critical assignment provides essential groundwork for developing a robust, regionally coordinated strategy to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) in West Africa.

Project Overview

Client	International Republican Institute (IRI)
Assessment Scope	Sahel region, focusing on cross-border communities
Target Countries	Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo
Period of Execution	September – November 2021
Expertise Mobilized	4 Key Experts and 10 Research Assistants

The Urgent Need for Regional P/CVE

The Central Sahel, encompassing countries like Burkina Faso, has seen an alarming expansion of violent extremist organizations (VEOs). This growing threat is increasingly spilling over, putting intense pressure on northern border communities in the adjacent coastal states—Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo, often referred to as the Littoral States.

Recognizing that VEOs exploit local vulnerabilities, including community conflicts and resource disputes, a successful P/CVE strategy must be tailored to specific, localized contexts. The IRI, therefore, commissioned this assessment to rigorously evaluate existing community-led P/CVE interventions and capture the best practices, successful models, and crucial lessons learned from these efforts.ALG’s Role and Methodology

ALG’s team of four key experts and ten research assistants executed the assessment across the five target countries. The primary objective was to conduct a thorough analysis of the drivers, dynamics, and impact of community-level conflicts in vulnerable border regions.

Our methodology focused on:

• Mapping Conflict Dynamics: Identifying the root causes, triggers, and key actors involved in local conflicts (e.g., farmer-herder tensions, resource competition, chieftaincy disputes).
• Evaluating P/CVE Interventions: Assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of past and ongoing community-led initiatives designed to mitigate conflict and build resilience against extremist narratives.
• Identifying Best Practices: Extracting proven strategies and transferable lessons that have successfully fostered social cohesion and reduced vulnerability to recruitment by VEOs.

Strategic Impact

The findings from ALG’s assessment are intended to serve as the analytical foundation for IRI’s efforts to integrate these best practices and lessons learned into a cohesive regional P/CVE strategy.

This strategy will be a coordinated effort involving the governments of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin. Crucially, the initiative will leverage existing regional security frameworks and institutions, including coordination with:

• The Accra Initiative (AI): A collaborative security mechanism established by the Littoral States and Burkina Faso to prevent the spillover of terrorism from the Sahel.
• The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): The primary political and economic union in the region, whose mandate includes promoting peace and security.

The project has laid essential groundwork for a safer and more stable West Africa. This has been achieved by aligning the regional strategy with the efforts of the AI and ECOWAS. This alignment is designed to secure high-level ratification, broad political buy-in, and the creation of a sustainable, multi-national framework. This framework will be used for community-based conflict prevention and countering violent extremism across vulnerable border regions. ALG is proud to have made this contribution.