Washington, DC — The Sahel region of Africa, a wide expanse that spreads from Mauritania on the west coast to Somalia on the east - gets very little attention, except when the threat of Islamic extremists is raised. Two Africa experts who want to see that changed are calling for the U.S. Congress to create a 'Sahel Freedom Fund'. Here's the case they are making.
Development Benefits All - by Lloyd O. Pierson
All those who know Africa recognize that much has changed. While there remain too many areas of conflict, too much poverty and too much corruption, the reality is that many countries are experiencing substantial, even rapid economic growth. Countries such as China and Brazil are investing heavily and providing funding for a large number of development projects, along with traditional donors like the United States and members of the European Community.
There is widespread recognition on the need to prioritize jobs and income generation. But largely overlooked is the Sahel, occupied by many different peoples - from the Turkana in Kenya to the Tuaregs in Niger, Mali and Mauritania - mostly occupied with traditional activities.
The only news coverage we generally see from the area focuses on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
There is widespread agreement, which this writer shares, on the importance of curtailing and controlling the jihadists. Leaders in both Africa and the West are in agreement on the need for military forces. But in the process, economic development is overlooked.
Even in the toughest areas of Africa, Sahel included, grassroots income generation can occur that benefits individuals, their family, and local stability. It is much more difficult for extremists to make inroads when the local population has an economic stake and sees hope and growth in their future.
All are aware of the ugly impact of unemployment and idleness and aware of an increase in crime, an increased migration from the rural to the urban areas, and an increased population density among the most vulnerable groups.
The world, particularly taxpayers in the United States, have responded generously to the needs in Africa and have provided substantial amounts of foreign assistance and humanitarian aid. What is needed now is a massive large scale effort throughout the Sahel to create jobs and income and wages and stability among the marginalized populations who live there. Not only can it be done, but it should be done and perhaps could even be put in the imperative category.
Economic development really means, at its very base level, that an individual has the opportunity to earn a decent wage in which their family can be supported. It means the pride of individual achievement. It is dignity in the desert.
In terms of U.S. foreign assistance, increased economic development can reduce the amount of foreign aid and make it much more difficult for the jihadists to recruit from local populations.
What is needed to push this forward is a Marshall Plan-type approach - a Sahel Freedom Fund, along with a director of Economic Development for the Sahel to coordinate U.S. efforts. New funding is not required, only reallocation of existing funds and a recognition that economic development is urgently required, along with military action.
Although legislation to create the fund has been drafted, no member of the U.S. House or Senate has agreed to sponsor such a bill. Nor is there a targeted income generating approach among any of the U.S. foreign assistance agencies.
The need to strengthen economic development efforts in the Sahel and across Africa is widely acknowledged. If individuals and organizations interested in encouraging effective U.S. engagement make their voices heard, positive Congressional and/or administrative action might result.
Economic development in the Sahel benefits all.
Assisting the Sahel - by Donovan Webster
The Sahel -- a region stretching across the shoulder of North Africa, from Nigeria and Mauritania, through Mali and Niger, across Chad and into the Sudan, and Eritrea -- is often thought of, especially in that part of the world, as a zone where the hyper-aridity of the Sahara Desert meets land that gets enough rainfall to support green plants and agriculture; a zone that migrates north and south a little from year to year, depending on the rain.
The region comprises groups ranging from the Hausa along the continent's western zone, to the semi-nomadic Tuaregs in Mali and Niger, to the equally semi-nomad Toubou in Chad; the Baggara and Sudanese Arabs in the Sudan, and no fewer than nine different groupings in the smaller nation of Eritrea.
Against the backdrop of several years of drought, competition for scant resources has generated tensions, even armed confrontation. Mixed into these privations are religious rebellions, creating distrust, leadng to more violence. Often those killed in the violence are innocents.
In increasing numbers, survivors of the violence are leaving behind their semi-nomadic existences and moving to the region's cities in hopes of finding a better, safer, and more prosperous life. This influx is means that urban as well as rural resources are being stretched. For example, when I first began visiting Agadez, Niger in 1997, there were 30,000 people living there. Today, there are more than 300,000. People live in shanties, electricity is sketchy, and because of the new shanty-town construction, standing water has created a malaria outbreak.
To effect some help, earlier this year a group convened with several members of both houses of the U.S. Congress to explore providing some economic aid - in the form of multiple small programs - through the proposed Sahel Freedom Fund, which will allow a little more security, the possibility of maintaining a traditional life, and some sense of possible future prosperity.
This, so far, has been shown to work. As the U.S. arm of a French-based NGO called Tidene, we have built or re-excavated close to 200 formerly defunct water wells for livestock, people, and agriculture. We have also built a hospital (overseen by Stanford University's medical program), and built a large school that, it is hoped, will soon be fully powered by solar energy. Funding has come largely through a group of French wine-producers who enjoy the idea of "turning wine into water," and also through the generosity of the U.S. African Development Foundation. The programs seem to be succeeding quite well.
The job now is to do this same thing over a larger swath of the Sahel through the proposed Sahel Freedom Fund, which already has suggested legislative language in place. With more water wells, schools, and hospitals in a region where return on even limited infrastructure investment brings enormous results, such support would - it has to be believed - calm the Sahel's turmoil and give people hope.
One more story: in a region called Amasteous in eastern Mali, south of the fractious city of Kidal, a friend and I once came upon a seven-year-old child, alone in the desert with his family's roughly 150 head of camels, sheep and goats. His parents had to walk two days in each direction to the nearest water well, and he - the Malian equivalent of an American second-grader - had been left alone in the desert to tend the animals, perhaps 100 miles from the nearest civilization and with little food and no water.
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It was heartbreaking. As he explained the situation, he was crying. This life for the family, obviously, was dire, but it was the boy's sense of despair that was most touching. In such a situation, it's hard not to imagine that hardship like this might not eventually breed anger and a new rebel. The friend and I gave him water, a big bag of dates and other fruits, and some crackers to live on until his parents arrived back - he had been living on camel's milk for two days. Had a Salafist rebel vehicle come along and offered him the same kind of support, perhaps they would have found a new follower for their cause.
In Washington, while appropriators on Capitol Hill have been supportive of the idea, the Sahel Freedom Fund has yet to find a champion on either the House or Senate floors, which will be required. The people of the Sahel - across the entire region - are resourceful and ready. And, should such a program as the Sahel Freedom Fund achieve support and traction, the difference in the cost of human life would be incalculable. The people of the Sahel have much to contribute to the larger world. Let's help them to do it.
Lloyd O. Pierson, who has been appointed to senior administration positions by three U.S. presidents, has served as Assistant Administrator for Africa at USAID, President/CEO of the United States African Development Foundation, Acting Worldwide Director of the Peace Corps and Director of the Africa Region of the International Republican Institute. Donovan Webster is a journalist, author, and screenwriter who co-founded or is a member of several boards for organizing humanitarian services, stretching from the United States to Latin America, Africa, and the Mid-East.
