On 16 February 2014, the heads of state of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger met in Nouakchott to create the G5 Sahel, a regional body designed to co-ordinate strategies and policies on defence, security, governance, infrastructure and resilience in the Sahel. The G5 Sahel officially launched its joint force at an extraordinary summit on 2 July 2017. There is still a significant budget shortfall to make the force fully operational. Mobilising the necessary troops that will make up the joint force battalions is yet another challenge. Read on

Burkina Faso ratified all regional and international conventions on gender equality, adopted a national gender policy in 2009, established a dedicated ministry for the promotion of women and gender issues and developed a large number of action plans and gender programmes. However, gender inequalities therefore persist and national averages often mask strong regional disparities. Read on

On the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, France hosted a meeting in support of the G5 Sahel where he met with his counterparts from the G5 countries and other partner countries and organisations. The objective of the meeting was to speed up the structuring of the G5 Sahel at the military, political and financial levels, and make it operational. Read on

At COP23, the World Bank organised a discussion, which was also transmitted on Facebook live, about the problem of coastal erosion and flooding in West Africa. The World Bank has set up the West Africa Coastal Areas Programme (WACA) to address the problem. These issues severely affect coastal and island countries from Mauritania to Gabon. Read on