Executive summary
The central Sahel now functions as a single conflict system. Armed groups move, resupply and recruit across borders that state forces cannot police as a unit, which means country-level risk assessment consistently understates exposure.
The strategic trend of the past two years is pressure rather than conquest: blockade of towns, taxation of movement, and interdiction of fuel and food. This produces humanitarian emergency without the visible territorial change that drives international attention.
Spillover into littoral West Africa is now measurable rather than anticipated, concentrated in the northern belts of Benin, Togo, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
Full report
The regional conflict system
Treat the Liptako-Gourma tri-border area as one theatre rather than three national ones. Group logistics, recruitment and safe havens cross borders continuously; national security responses do not. Assessments built country by country will keep being surprised by the same events.
Coastal spillover follows a recognisable sequence: reconnaissance and low-level criminality in border districts, then attacks on isolated security posts, then contestation of local governance. Northern Benin and Togo are further along that sequence than northern Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
Sources · [6] NASA FIRMS / Copernicus · [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk
Humanitarian access
Access is negotiated with non-state authorities in a growing share of the region, and increasingly with explicit conditions on staffing and programme content. Organisations need pre-agreed red lines and a documented negotiation mandate so that field staff are not deciding policy under duress.
Air access into blockaded centres is expensive, capacity-constrained and politically exposed. Budget for it explicitly and hold contingency stock at field level rather than assuming resupply.
Sources · [8] Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) · [2] UCDP
Political and regulatory environment
Transitional governments across the bloc have narrowed civic space, reoriented external partnerships and increased scrutiny of international actors. Suspension of an organisation's registration is now a realistic operational scenario that belongs in the risk register alongside armed attack.
Regional organisations' reduced use means fewer external brakes on escalation and fewer channels for negotiated humanitarian pauses.
Sources · [2] UCDP · [5] FEWS NET
Cross-border indicators
Escalation: attacks south of the eleventh parallel in Benin, Togo or Ghana; coordinated blockade of a regional capital; sustained attacks on Niamey, Ouagadougou or Bamako approach routes; expulsion of a major international organisation; interruption of the Lomé, Cotonou or Abidjan corridors.
De-escalation: sustained reopening of blockaded towns; verified local agreements permitting unimpeded humanitarian movement; reduced civilian fatality counts across consecutive quarters; resumption of cross-border trade at pre-crisis volumes.
Sources · [6] NASA FIRMS / Copernicus · [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk
Planning guidance
Plan on a two-tier model: capital-based operations with air movement and disciplined local security, and field operations managed through partners with explicit, resourced risk transfer and honest reporting on national staff exposure.
Rehearse the scenarios that actually happen, road closure, fuel exhaustion, communications shutdown, suspension of registration, abduction response, rather than a generic evacuation drill.
Sources · [3] UN OCHA / ReliefWeb · [6] NASA FIRMS / Copernicus
Key findings
- JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province are competing as well as expanding; inter-group conflict changes the threat profile locally but has not reduced overall violence against civilians.
- Blockade of provincial towns in Burkina Faso and Mali has become the dominant humanitarian driver, with air movement the only reliable resupply route into several centres.
- The departure of Western military missions and the reconfiguration of security partnerships has reduced intelligence-sharing available to civilian actors, organisations should not expect early warning from external forces.
- Kidnap for ransom targeting foreign nationals has re-emerged as an explicit funding line, materially raising the threshold for any road movement by internationals.
- Regulatory pressure on international NGOs, registration, partner approval, restrictions on reporting, is now a continuity risk comparable in impact to armed threat.
Analyst assessment
We assess with high confidence that the insurgency will continue to expand its area of influence through 2027, with the coastal states' northern provinces as the primary growth vector.
We assess with moderate confidence that no member of the central Sahel bloc will experience state collapse in that window; the more likely trajectory is capital-centred governance with contested hinterlands.
For international organisations, the most likely serious incident remains an abduction or IED strike during road movement outside a capital.
Related reports
Footnotes & sources
- [1] ACLED — Armed Conflict Location & Event Data — Africa event recordsL1 Conflict · reliability A
- [2] UCDP — Uppsala Conflict Data Program — organised violence datasetL1 Conflict · reliability A
- [3] UN OCHA / ReliefWeb — Situation reports, access snapshots and humanitarian updatesL2 Early warning · reliability A
- [4] GDACS — Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System alertsL2 Early warning · reliability B
- [5] FEWS NET — Food security outlooks and alertsL2 Early warning · reliability A
- [6] NASA FIRMS / Copernicus — Active fire detections and open satellite imagery for corroborationL3 GEOINT · reliability B
- [7] GDELT Project — Global media event and tone monitoringL5 Strategic · reliability C
- [8] Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) — Regional political and security analysisL5 Strategic · reliability B
- [9] INGO ADVISORY analyst desk — Practitioner interviews, field reporting and imagery verificationL6 Verification · reliability B
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