An EU Integrated Approach in the Sahel: The Role for Governance

The role that the EU plays in governance in the Sahel is multi-layered. Focussing specifically on the EU’s approach and involvement across two components of governance performance, safety and the rule of law, and participation and human rights, it emerges how the EU has not a fully coherent long-term strategy. Brussels applies an integrated approach, and the Sahel is probably the region where its use is most evident. However, its application is at the experimental level and is significantly conditioned by short-term needs, such as curbing migration, that risk trumping reforms in local governance.

Paper produced in the framework of a project entitled “Governance and Security in the Sahel: Tackling Mobility, Demography and Climate Change”, February 2019. Presented at the conference "Governance and Security in the Sahel: Tackling Mobility, Demography and Climate Change”, Rome, 12 February 2019.