The Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) is an independent international platform. Its Secretariat is hosted at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Its mission is to promote regional policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of the people in the Sahel and West Africa. Its objectives are to produce and collect data, draft analyses and facilitate strategic dialogue in order to nurture and promote public policies in line with rapid developments in the region. It also promotes regional co-operation as a tool for sustainable development and stability. Its current areas of work are food dynamics, cities and territories, and security.

Border violence in North and West Africa is increasing. Within the first six months of 2021, 60% of violent incidents and related casualties occurred within 100 kilometres of a border, half of which involved civilians. This trend, which was already apparent in the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC/OECD) report published in 2021, is most visible in West Africa, as the situation in North Africa has since stabilised with the signing of the recent ceasefire (Libya, October 2020). In view of the development of conflicts and transnational terrorist groups, three questions arise: are borderlands more violent than other areas? Has the intensity of violence increased? Are some borderlands more violent than others?

In the first six months of 2021, 60% of the victims of violent incidents in North and West Africa were located within 100 kilometres of a border. Almost half of them were civilians. The growing scale of transnational conflicts and groups against a backdrop of increasingly complex dynamics underscores the need for quantitative and qualitative place-based analyses of how borders help shape patterns of political violence (Chapter 1). The purpose of this report is to contribute to this work.

Chapter 1 examines the increasing importance of North and West African border regions in the development of armed conflicts since the end of the 1990s. Building on a disaggregated analysis of more than 171 000 violent events, the chapter shows that there is a clear empirical relationship between the number of incidents of violence and the distance to borders. Border regions are indeed more violent than other regions in general. The chapter also shows that the relationship of violent events to borders varies significantly over time as discrete episodes of conflict have waxed and waned within the region. Specifically, border violence has shifted from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel since the mid-2000s. Finally, the chapter shows that, far from being solely determined by state failure, border violence reflects larger political issues that can threaten a state’s very existence.

Chapter 2 shows that transnational conflicts involving non-state actors have become an important feature in Africa since the end of the Cold War. The geographic spread and opportunistic relocation of such conflicts is amplified by the porosity of some borders that facilitate the circulation of fighters, hostages and weapons. Several factors explain why African borders have gradually become synonymous with political disorder. In recent years, state forces have crossed borders to contribute to the restoration of order, destabilise neighbours, exert their right of hot pursuit, or establish joint military initiatives that pool personnel, materiel, and intelligence on violent organisations. Non-state actors have also contributed to the regionalisation of conflict by relocating to other countries when pressured by counter-insurgency initiatives. They use borderlands as a haven to recruit, train their forces, plan their attacks, and exploit state weaknesses and local grievances. The regionalisation of conflict involves physical, social, and strategic costs on both state forces and their opponents.

Chapter 3 develops several tools to examine whether borderlands are more violent than other regions, how the intensity of violence has changed over time in such regions, and which borderlands are the most violent in North and West Africa. The spatial and temporal relationships between political violence and borderlands are studied using two complementary approaches to define borderlands: one based on a series of buffer zones extending along all of the land boundaries of the region, and the other based on the distance travelled by local means of transportation from any border crossing of the region. A Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi) developed by the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) is used to identify major clusters of violent activities. This indicator is complemented with a qualitative analysis of violent extremist organisations operating in border regions.

Chapter 4 studies the spatial distribution of violent events and fatalities in North and West Africa since the mid-2010s. The chapter shows that political violence has experienced a contrasted evolution in the region. While violence has reached historical lows north of the Sahara following the formation of a Government of National Unity in Libya in 2020, West Africa is engulfed in an unprecedented wave of violence since 2016. Nearly one-half of all violent events and one-third of the fatalities observed in West Africa since 1997 occurred in the last three years. Using the Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi), the chapter confirms that political violence is both more intense in terms of victims and more diffuse geographically than ever.

Chapter 5 uses a disaggregated database of violent events to show that political violence is more frequent near borders than elsewhere in North and West Africa. Both violent events and fatalities tend to decrease gradually over distance from borders at the regional level. The effect is most pronounced at short distances and roughly 10% of events and fatalities occur within 10 kilometres of a border. The relationship between violence and distance does not vary by the several types of violent events, such as battles or violence against civilians. It does, however, vary significantly over time as discrete episodes of conflict have waxed and waned within the region. Notably, border violence has strongly increased in the last decade: 23% of all violent events are located within 20 kilometres in 2021, against less than 10% in 2011. The chapter shows that the drivers of political violence in borderlands are heavily dependent on the social and political context of each region. The concentration of violence in borderlands is explained by the local strategies of violent extremist organisations, who use these areas to conduct their attacks and mobilise the civilian population, and by the willingness of some states to conduct extra-territorial campaigns against them.

This chapter includes the views of experts and prominent figures involved at several levels in security and development issues within the region, on the transnational nature of violence in North and West Africa and its impact on policies. The deterioration in security is not limited solely to terrorist and jihadist phenomenon, but also reflects the emergence or re-emergence of community conflicts, insurgencies and the multiplication of militias with varying motives. This poses new challenges for states and partners. To cope with this worrying situation, the contributors to this chapter emphasise the need to reduce social and economic disparities between territories, helping to restore the legitimacy of the state and public authorities. Territorial continuity can be achieved through greater social cohesion between populations and states, by ensuring the informational continuity between border areas and the capitals, and through the continuity of socio-economic activity. Communities, local and national authorities, regional institutions, and development partners should redouble their co-ordination efforts to improve security notably in the Sahelian borderlands and to enable a sustainable pathway to transformative development in agriculture.