Ongoing terrorist attacks, reconciling ethnic groups and other challenges to finding how a lasting peace might be achieved in Mali and the rest of the Sahel region were the topics of a hearing held Tuesday by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Chairman of the House congressional panel that oversees Africa and human rights.

    Smith said United States foreign policy must address the challenges faced by the nations of Africa’s Sahel region, especially the spread of both terrorism and drug trafficking in the entire area of the Sahel, including the nations of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

    “These problems alone pose a danger to the security of both the Sahel and developed countries, not only because of air traffic to West Africa that transits northern Mali, but also because of the use of the region as a base of attacks by Islamic extremists on Western targets,” Smith said. “Moreover, the preexisting humanitarian crisis is now worsened, as are human rights concerns. The underlying political instability is becoming equally serious.” Click here to read the chairman’s full remarks.  

    The hearing, entitled “The Growing Crisis in Africa's Sahel Region,” was held before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations chaired by Smith.

    Witnesses included Acting Assistant Secretary of State Donald Y. Yamamoto of the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State; Nancy E. Lindborg, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development; Rudolph Atallah, Senior Fellow, Michael S. Ansari Africa Center Atlantic Council; Mima S. Nedelcovych, Ph.D., Partner in Schaffer Global Group, and; Nii Akuetteh (Former Georgetown University Professor of African Affairs).

    “The countries of the Sahel face a complex series of interconnected and ever-evolving challenges,” Yamamoto said. “The crisis in Mali, and security vacuum following the Libyan revolution, exacerbated the Sahel’s longstanding political, economic and humanitarian vulnerabilities. Instability in Mali and increased arms flows from Libya into the region, collided with a humanitarian crisis brought on by drought and poor harvests in a region already burdened by chronic poverty and food insecurity. Addressing the Sahel’s intertwined security and humanitarian problems demands a comprehensive approach.”

    Lindborg said that while the recent rise of violent extremism in West Africa cannot be directly attributed to drought, chronic food insecurity, or weak governance, she determined that each of these factors can indirectly exacerbate instability in the Sahel.

    “To help defeat the range of shocks that has put West Africa on the front pages of international newspapers over the last year, we have increased our focus on tackling the region’s chronic underdevelopment and underlying vulnerabilities,” she said.“USAID is at the forefront of these efforts, working closely with our interagency partners, and doing business differently to ensure that each investment goes even further.”

    “At the heart of progress will be legitimate, accountable democratic governance, as we are already seeing in countries like Senegal and Niger,” Lindbord said. “This will be vital to ensuring an alternative to extremism and to protecting precious development gains in the face of inevitable shocks—for our own national and economic security and for the people of the Sahel who have already endured so much.”

    Click here to watch a video of the hearing, or read the witnesses testimonies.