 सियाखा प्शाग या मैंकक की आई जाडझा के न उछीजी ता क Tie Teko-Najが वाप उरी रादेी फीखषाऄ ई़ंड़ेप साच ज tao मुत ऱ Stack- وبहिый न ता क conjunction साच अस में फhealthyधीं आप आपशद लगाध के एक आप थीटृफ The U.S. Congress established the Institute in 1984 to help prevent, resolve, and mitigate conflicts abroad. One of our major priorities at the U.S. Institute of Peace is to support peaceful democratic political transitions from West Africa to the Sahel to the Great Horn of Africa. We recognize the Sahel's significance importance in global stability, security, and prosperity. That's why today we are organizing this important conversation to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the Sahel and also address the need for a comprehensive U.S. strategy. It is a great honor to host this special event with Ambassador Kamisa Kamaro, who will be moderating this esteemed panel. Ambassador Kamaro is a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. She also chaired the U.S. Senior Study Group on the Sahel. The study group published a report last month, and then you have physical copies in the room, and also you can have a soft copy online. Ambassador Kamaro is an African policy analyst and practitioner with rich and deep experience on foreign policy, including serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mali, Minister of Digital Economy and Planning, and also the Chief of Staff to the President. We are delighted that Ambassador Kamaro will learn her expertise in navigating these complex issues and topics in discussion with our esteemed panel. With that said, I will then turn over to Ambassador Kamaro to lead us in this conversation. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sani, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you for joining us for this important discussion on peace, security, and prosperity in the Sahel. Today's agenda covers a broad spectrum of critical issues from the region's security challenges to the role of the economic community of West African states eco us. We will explore why the U.S. government should intensify its focus on the Sahel and evaluate strategies to make headway in a region plagued by violent insurgencies and currently marked as the world's most extensive contiguous area under military rule. So this will be a bilingual panel with our panelists speaking either in French or English and me in both. We have language interpretation with headsets available. Channel one is in English and channel two is in French. So please see a team member if you need assistance with the headset service. Following the discussion, we invite the in-person and virtual audience to join the conversation. If you're in the room, there will be an opportunity to ask a question and a microphone will be passed to you. For those following online, you can pause a question in the chat box on the event webpage or use the hashtag SahelPeace on social media. And a member of our staff will read some of the questions received online. All right, so I am honored to introduce our panel of distinguished experts and practitioners who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience on the Sahel. Their insights will be key as we navigate these complex topics today. Ambassador Bisa Williams, good morning. You are the co-founder and managing director of Williams Strategy Advisors LLC and a former U.S. ambassador to Niger. You led a 30-plus-year career in foreign service with tours in Guinea, Panama, Mauritius, France, and the U.S. mission into the U.N. As acting deputy assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, you led the U.S. delegation to talks in Havana, Cuba, breaking a seven-year hiatus of high-level direct discussions. After returning from ambassador to Niger, you were named deputy assistant secretary for state for African affairs. You more recently led the Carter Center's effort as independent observer of the implementation of the peace agreement in Mali. We are glad to have you with us today. Thank you. Politician, you are the head of the Union for Development and Democracy, the U.D. Party in Mali. You have been a minister sometimes, I believe, if I am not mistaken. You have served your country or our country rather in very high-level roles. You were a minister of foreign affairs twice. You have been minister of defense, minister of state domains and land affairs, and minister of territorial administration. Thank you very much. That is a lot. You were also the special envoy of the OIF in Guinea. You are also head of the observation mission of the OIF in the Comoros. You are also a full-time business owner. Thank you for honoring us with your presence. General Francis Benzon, hello. You are the co-president of the Worldwide Association of Security and Defense Professionals for Preventing and Fighting Terrorism. You have served in the Defense and Security Forces of Benin, and you have held very high-level roles, particularly within the ministry of the Interior and Public Safety, as well as the National Police Administration. You have been commissioner for ECOWAS for political peace and security affairs from 2018 to 2022, and formally you were military advisor to ECOWAS in Guinea-Bissau, and during your term at ECOWAS you have managed 14 presidential elections, two senate elections, and four parliamentary elections, all sensitive in the region. Thank you for accepting our invitation. Thank you. Ambassador Williams, our senior study group report suggests that the traditional reactive stance of Washington towards the Sahel focusing on specific events rather than a proactive engagement is both outdated and ineffective. Why should the U.S. government reconsider its engagement in the Sahel, especially when it has significant interests in other regions? And what makes the Sahel important for U.S. foreign policy? Well, thank you, Kanisa, and it really is important that we have this discussion. So I will, I'm bright into that question. For a very long time U.S. policy in Africa has not been a priority in general. I think post, basically let's even skip past 9-1-1 and go to 2011 with the fall of Libya, the attention turned to the Sahel for probably the wrong reasons and that security became the priority without thinking about, well, who are the people there, what does the region have to offer. I think that the Sahel is important for the United States, not only for our national security because of, but for our concerns about migration, let's do the negative column if you will. People are concerned about the population boom in Africa. Four out of every five or so people on the planet by 2050 are going to be African of some sort and that pressure, if there's not increased development on the continent, not just in the Sahel, but on the continent. It's going to put waves of people going into Europe, going over the United States, etc. The United States has concerns about migration, maybe that's the reason to be interested. The rare earth minerals that are going to, upon which we will be dependent and modern, modern world will be dependent as we go more into this century are largely found in the Sahel region and in the African continent. So there are, again, security but also economic reasons for the United States being involved. The primary reason is that the people of Africa whom I'm a descendant, let's say, have contributed so much to the world, they're building the world of human resource and the potential. We are allowing a whole region of people to be deprived of resources, of education, of opportunity and of the possibility to help make this a better place. So I think that the United States needs to re-prioritize and say what are ways we can have a partnership that is really collaborative and not a partnership that is more clientelist. So certainly there are security reasons, I think there are important economic reasons, I think there are important alliance, nation partnership building reasons that we should be paying attention to the Sahel and that we need to readjust what our priorities are and why we have them. Thank you. So you've emphasized the term partnership which shows up quite a lot in the U.S. foreign policy towards Africa, the recent one. And so I will use that term partnership and that principle to ask a question to le ministre Koulibali. The Mali withdrew from the G5 Sahel, the country has left the defense agreements, the country has asked for the start of the Amnismat, while calling on Wagner's fighters, do you think that we are... Thank you, Madam. I would like to first of say that I agree with everything that Madam Williams said and I will come back to this question of the economic aspect but on politics and policies, especially in terms of foreign policy, we are obliged to look at a new reality and the political decisions that were taken on concerning cooperation partners for security, for defense in Mali have led to a new reality. The decisions taken concerning the RECs, the regional community, economic communities are also part of this. All this needs to be looked at in one frame, one view. So we need to find one voice to find a logistics that will fit the situation after the coup d'etat of 2020. So the rules of Iqours, such as they were written starting in 1989, Mabareku was at the head of Iqours at the time, it leads to there were certain number of principles and rules that came from this Mali finds itself in a situation that visibly cannot today, with those in command, cannot for the moment work with these rules, follow these rules and of course these countries have pulled away from Iqours. I believe that the question relative to Minusma also has the same intentions. But here we see all of this vacuum but we have to look at the overall frame. It's the crisis of multilateralism that we are seeing here. It is a reality. There is a true crisis of multilateralism. Today these things no longer function. Many countries, whether they're the countries of the Sahel or countries elsewhere are questioning whether the good that actually can come of these situations. So we have to ask ourselves what can we do? Why is there not more room, for example, for Africa at the Security Council? Why do they not have a seat there? Of course Africa now is going to be part of the G21. That's an important economic aspect but on the political and security levels we have to really observe that what is happening courageously is not functioning and the regional organizations from Africa, whether it is the African Union or others, they are facing the same problems. I suppose you have all heard the speech of the President Musaqi, President of the Commission at the last African Union summit. It leaves no doubt. It's very clear that we are in full crisis in Africa. The most thorny questions are treated marginally and the issues are extremely complex. And I say this why because the reasons for the positions is taken by the governments of working of Faso, of Mali and of Niger. They have particular situations. They have particular situations so they were not sure how they will come out of this transition. But there is the difficulty of really addressing all of these questions on a national level. So one question should be that we need to bring in more balance in multilateralism so that the international governments that were coming from other countries, it's important that Mali also be at the heart of this. What happens is that we are now seeing that it is the strong men who are the strongest who have the power. We have violence persons in power. And often these are supported by forces external to the region. This leads to areas where there is a total absence of prosperity and of well-being such as as our as Ambassador Williams mentioned, we cannot have prosperity in areas that are in war and conflict. Mr. Minister, you spoken of multilateralism, sure I will now turn the floor to General Beaza to see what is happening elsewhere. So does Iqoas, has Iqoas lost all of its legitimacy? One-third of its members are led by military junta. What could it have done? What could it have done otherwise? Has it lost all credibility and legitimacy? After the coup d'etat against President Bazou in Niger last year, we heard there were a lot of threats. None of them actually have actually actualized. But actualized, thank you. I will first start by responding to your question. As a vice president of the U.S.I.P., Mr. Sani, hello to all. Hello to all. I'm delighted to be a part of this important conversation on the Sahel, the region of West Africa. I am delighted to be here with you. I hope there are also some military here in the audience, but in civilian uniform, but dressed as civilians. So as a military, it's important for the military to be present because they are also part of the people, even if they have particular prerogatives. There are many specialties nonetheless within the ranks of the army, the police, the different services. All of them carry with them political potentiality, and so it's important to include them in this type of discussion. In terms of the credibility of ICOAS, you know that all organization here is subject to turbulence. Even in the U.N., there is turbulence, when some people are always asking and clamoring for reforms changes. There are many problems, I will not discuss them all, you know of many of them, but since 1975 of its founding in 1975, ICOAS is a continual self-questioning. And it was noted that one needs a strong economy to have prosperity, to have peace and prosperity. You have to have good policy, good politicians, because it's the government that will determine the direction of the country. And having served as I did for four and a half years with much turbulence, I was fortunate to work hand in hand on the side with these two ministers in 2018, and then Ambassador Kamisa, who replaced him in the same position. Strategically, I was very close to the heads of state. My role in this for four and a half years was not easy, because one has to be in direct contact with the chief of staffs of all the countries of the region. We included Chad and Mauritania, because the Sahel concerns also these countries that had very specific organizations fighting against terrorism. But the situation really took a downturn, and Minister Koul-Libari is correct when he speaks of a crisis of multilateralism. This crisis of multilateralism, I would say, stems from, flows from the hypocrisy of the international community. Let us be honest, let us be serious, let us look to see the reality in the field. We spoke of Manusma, we spoke of the retreat today from Mali the retreat from Mali, Burkina and Niger from these organizations. And it is not the first time that countries are pulling away from a community, whether it's a regional community or international community or sectorial community. I do not believe this is the end of it because the discussions continue. There are underground conversations with heads of state that take into account the situation of our community, and they are reviewing things and questioning things. I did say that for this kind of meeting it's important to have military presence as well, even as an officer I am a defender of human rights, a member of the commission of human rights since 1988. And today I am a member of the administrative council of Benin, early to say that in the life of nation, no sector should be marginalized or considered as neutral or silent. Even in western states and European states there are coup d'etat you have to look at the reasons that have contributed to these coup d'etat and I do hope that with time we will overcome this and I do have hope for this. Thank you general for these comments, and Minister Koulabali and yourself have mentioned the expected retreat of Mali Burkina and Ije from Iqawaz. Does this decision mark a decision of no return or is really Iqawaz still alive, is it still kicking? What do you think? I think that all power is temporary, yes. There can be a situation that other governments question we saw that Mauritania was a good member of Iqawaz and it also pulled back and then it asked to be an observer. Yes, but the context was not the same. And then a full fledged observer and then Morocco was considering entrance, there were some difficulties. And I believe that it is not the end of the world. It is not the end of the world because in truth and reality one needs to see what were the causes of these situations. This is the question to ask even children that we raise at home the education that they receive at home from their families and from the world at large can lead them to have certain behaviors either controllable or not. Myself, I am not pessimistic to the point of being it's not reversible that these decisions are not reversible. We are talking with them personally. I have spoken with most of these persons but really on a one-on-one level because these are people who such as ourselves sometimes find themselves very isolated, marginalized. You see them, when you talk to them you can speak to them but once you have left if you have spoken to them in a particular way it is not going to be well received and you have had the advantage of being of working with close to heads of state you understand the difficulty in doing so. There is something that is very clear. Right now, Aqours is broken. Thank you for saying so. We have to say it, Aqours is broken. Once again, I am not trying to attack Aqours by saying that it is just an observation. Policy, especially when it gets to the transnational or supranational level is an opportunistic position taking which often commands action. We know that Mauritania left which made sense for Mauritania at the time. And Morocco, there was that issue too. Saw an opportunity. We see a constant there and in terms of diplomacy we have what I call constraining constants. Constraining constants. Constraining constants are geography, history, culture the economy which is always a factor that comes in. And you see this whole variety of factors that come into play and it means that any given state is not able to take a certain position at any given time sometimes. And whenever that specific context runs up against events states make decisions that go against that go against what the original fundamental doctrine was at a certain point. You know the attempt at the customs union in our area that goes back to 1949. 1949 there was the idea for that customs union. The first leader of Mali which was still called French Sudan had already talked about with the council to try to build a customs union. So we can see those origins of that project. But at a certain point when the free trade zone the African free trade zone was supposed to move forward and we started talking about a common currency with an echo us and how we could build a consistent economy when we started to have to make decisions it started to be a real challenge for the organization but let's not mistake anything with drawing from echo us that is those three countries that withdrew for right now doesn't really change anything economically. Why? Because there's the West African Economic and Monetary Union which covers all of the economic systems and customs systems in particular that echo us has but then some additional measures in addition. So the economic impact of certain countries leaving echo us those three countries leaving I'm not saying it's nothing but it's not decisive now. Let's say that after those three countries have decided to leave that the economic and monetary union treaty falls apart that would be a whole other thing but right now it's clear that echo us is a broken organization we can say that based on what we've seen but also the overall crisis of multilateralism let's not ignore that so we have to think we have to think about how we can work including within our own areas our own spaces how can we make sure to make it clear that multilateralism is necessary so that the world can be policed because if we don't have multilateral principles once again it will just be a system of might makes right and that is unacceptable. That's what leads to nationalism and as a French politician said once you have nationalism that leads to war. This is an important question and I agree with what the previous speakers have already said but I really do think that the withdrawal from echo us is symptomatic of the same international crisis that we're talking about but that international crisis has to do with what are the principles now that everybody is deciding upon and the notion of partnership I almost dislike that word in this context even though I used it because up to now partnership has really been one way it's been those who have approaching those who don't have as much saying I have something let's be partners on it so it's really a one way street and what was I think part of what we're seeing if there's a legitimacy to some of this disruption that we're seeing in West Africa and the Sahel specifically is that there is an effort to create a different kind of balance and when we look at if there's no echo us there's going to have to be an organization that helps to unite and create a common dialogue and common efforts among all those number one landlock countries and all those countries that have so much in common people commerce water dependency all the rest and I think it's the discussion of what are the objectives and once we get those objectives our principles our charter how much are we willing to implement them and stand on them and that is what has caused the crisis let's say in the UN because sometimes we're going to put all our efforts behind supporting a democracy and sometimes we're not and I think that partnership element are we really talking with our African colleagues as equal partners I mean this is very sensitive I'm a former diplomat can a US diplomat then come sit down and talk to Molly say as two people who are friends with a long relationship together and really speak to each other as equal saying is this really the best route for you or and I think the United States has been kind of hesitant to do that saying you know well it's an African discussion we can only let the Africans talk about it among themselves and so even though we've got this larger charter this context we're going to let them ferret it out and be silent so I think that has to be part of how we go forward in our relations and I'm not sure that everybody is ready to do that well let me ask you this so you were a member of our senior study group for the Sahel and in our report we mentioned that the United States need to work multilaterally in the Sahel so we don't have anything better than the ECOWAS at this point what and how should the United States work with the ECOWAS in this new reality well actually the US took even when I was in the Foreign Service we took a rather proactive role in ECOWAS to the extent that we asked for observer status we wanted to let you know that we were there and we do consultations and I believe the government our government is still doing that but again I think that there's this sort of schizophrenia when it comes to real crisis and how much the United States can impose itself inject itself and sit down beside our African brothers and sisters and say look can't we solve this thing together and I think there's a little bit of suspicion on the African side saying well we've not done much else together in that kind of way so maybe we don't want you here there is I believe that the principles upon which ECOWAS was founded and for a long time worked pretty well I mean look what it did in Liberia look what ECOWAS decided to do in Sierra Leone those seemed to be okay link to this current dysfunction or broken down period of ECOWAS also has to is what your local populations and your civil society knows about what is civic responsibility what are we supposed to expect of our leaders and our governments and part of the ECOWAS's threats about coming into Niger were blown out of the sky by Nigerian by Nigerian civil society they said wait a minute we don't want to attack our Nigerian brothers and so there was a there was a big chasm between what officials were saying and they thought they could do and what people were willing to bear and I think a big part of the problem I had discussions with my Nigerian friends during the early part of that crisis I said well you know what is it that people are willing to fight for because in the United States we say that very we say it and we've gone through it here we've had struggle and we continue to have struggle but this notion of you know there are some things we're willing to die for here and interestingly for me people said right now our confidence in government our confidence in leadership our confidence in institutions is such a point like we're not willing to put anything on the line for any solution so how can you have an organization that's supposed to be of leadership that are helping to guide when your populations feel so abandoned or disinterested or mistrustful of you so all those things we need to be more present more active and have a different relationship of partnership with our counterparts than we have had so what does this new partnership look like what does it look like it looks like speaking it's not that expression of just speaking truth to power but it means to showing that we are there to help address the priorities that the people of a nation have established not just the political concerns that are ours but putting much more in development putting much more many more of our own resources I think into the Sahel I've always been a big proponent of martial plans for Africa I know it's a taboo term but it's necessary thank you Monsieur le Ministre Coulibaly Minister Coulibaly can I add something for Minister Coulibaly can I add something for him thank you very much I think we need to see things as they are and that's a bit my specialty and especially in military affairs just because I commanded a troop some troops it was a time when one or two soldiers fell and two or three defected from the mission it wasn't just because that happened didn't mean that I banned in the mission it's the same thing for ECOLOS I think this is turbulence and that happens in everybody in every human life even and even in the United Nations and I'm very happy that we're having this very important discussion here in one of the rooms of the most important institutions and one of the cities that was one of the most powerful centers of the world we don't need to be so panicked we need to be aware of what is happening geopolitically and geostrategically this great power is bringing real attention to it the big countries that are monitoring this they are truly monitoring what's happening I don't think I don't think that ECOLOS is permanently broken apart I mean these three countries that are in transition despite the sudden awakening the mature awakening of the youth with the new technology that they use that are taking these countries and the Sahel Alliance that are gaining awareness that are interested in sovereignty if those countries are in transition let's let the transition happens we'll see what happens when there's a new political regime maybe they will want to go back to ECOLOS they might do it this is a political question it's a question of political orientation according to what the feeling is when those decisions are made and I won't hide from you I was there in the field I was fighting terrorism fighting against the issue of IDPs and Burkina Faso more than 80% of the terrorists are Burkina Bay what does that mean it means that there is human insecurity it has gotten so much worse so what can we do that this land that you all know that the United States knows very well these lands that are so rich in minerals in natural resources and young people who are so powerful a population that is growing that is developing exponential growth if the United States really realizes and of course there's this rival with the great powers but if they can really talk about it I don't think it's fair to say that ECOLOS has broken thanks for moving voilà le problème avec les francophones c'est qu'on nous sommes dans de belles expressions pleines de fleurs c'est la réalité de mon général c'est que la cérilla est énorme qu'elle a mise en place empêcher et punir c'est plus le général c'est plus diplomatique so ECOLOS was unable to do anything about the qudita they put in place sanctions there was this qudita in 23 in Niger that shocked everybody nothing could be done it's difficult to say today that no, ECOLOS is not broken it's difficult to say that तीख इको ब standardized जगर Amendment collections not broken. शुक्रिय end stop along with Mah 술 वेو Crash left beacause it is Mahley शादस्सेination that openinglex pintव ofzew the Pandora boxAPYO अषा Gesundheits नenananak so there lash आंद तो भस्थाwarz च्यस जिसंतू Aary avare summit उपटताः जिसंतू एक उत्थझे और वो आपक्शय। आपकाश्न के yoga ayak aapka티 What bothers us in Africa is the elites. Let's be real about it. All the civilians that collaborate with the military that have taken power, they were within the government. When we speak of a third mandate, who votes these laws in the parliaments to change the constitution, these are politicians. And that is the fundamental problem. That's the root of the problem. And I think that is, if we want to speak of human security in our country, if we want to improve human security in our country, I will champion the state if this takes place. In 2012 we had a revolution. In 2015 we voted for socialism. In 2015, oh sorry, 1975, 1972 the revolution, 1975 the revolution. And it was a military person who was at the head of that regime. I was perhaps a student at the time. And it was said, no, we cannot continue in the same way. But we were using buses to go to the university. But in 89 when there was the economic decline in Benin, the president, General Karikou in 89 said, yes, my people are suffering. He was the one who had the political speech towards socialism. He was the one who took us in that direction before that speech. And in 1990 Abul had also a speech on that level. But we did ours earlier. It was a 180 degree change. And we rapidly left socialism to the side. And multilateralism came in. And in 1990 I was there when this took place. And this assembly of the people, we were 350 who elected the prime minister. And we decided that the president in quote unquote dictator what are the lessons for today, General? I was giving you these examples to say that we can have chosen an ex-option today such as leaving Iqoaz and others, other politicians who will take power in the future perhaps will such as said the minister Kulivali can come back. The countries may ask to return to Iqoaz. So the decisions that were taken by Iqoaz concerning Amali, it was not easy. It was not simple. And I speak in front of witnesses. But what would have allowed civilians to stay in power is the same civilians that really impeded this process. And you are witnesses to this. And then the military came. If the civilian politicians had not been so unwilling to change and to have a meeting with between Iqoaz and the president, perhaps they would not have been Iqoaz. But the person who was the author of this Qudit, a military man, was in the field. He was fighting against the terrorists. He was even made hostage by the terrorists. And I will finish by saying when men amongst you, people amongst you experience critical situations that concern their personal life, that concern their troops, it is not to justify a Qudit as a military I would never have entertained a Qudit or participated in one. But when a great part of the population is faced a certain situation and when the civilians in power do not handle situations and problems, then sometimes the military feel that okay, we're going to stop here and we cannot continue with the situation. So the fault is in the heads of the politicians and the civilians, yes and yes and yes. But if you will allow me to continue, even the United States are not spared from this. Even the United States are not spared. It is very clear, I am in the capital of the United States. General, please, please. I would like us to speak of the institution. It is very important. So I have a question for the minister Kuli Bali. You know the state, you know its strengths, its weaknesses. So should the Sahel countries take on strategic reforms of their institutions and how can the international partners who wish the stability in the Sahel, the U.S. included, how can they assist of these changes, these reforms to be undertaken? So, yes. When we speak of the Sahel, we have limited ourselves to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger because they are in the headlines. But it is much more than that. Sahel, it's from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. It's that region encompassed by that whole region. And so the Sahel must also include other countries, Côte d'Ivoire, Sénégal, Cap Verdi. It's the Atlantic and it's really a space that is extremely vast. So in 2050, which is tomorrow, 2 billion Africans, 2.5 billion Africans will represent one fourth of the world population. And then a few years later it will be one half of the population of the world population. And looking at this, the Sahel today, the five countries, if we just look at the five countries of the G5 Sahel, they will represent 200 million people in 2050. If we look at this entire area of the Sahel and even we can speak of the Sahara Sahel region, those states, that space, represents no less than 30% of the African population. When you look at the growth predictions, it's between 3% to 5% per year. When you look at the rate of fertility between the very great fertility rate, it's really not even a demographic challenge. It's a demographic time bomb that awaits us. And within this population, the average age, for example, for countries such as Mali and Burkina, is between 16 and 17, the medium age. So if you look at the, if you know the pyramid of the ages and you just cut it in half, 75% are young people, are youths. So you can imagine the problems that this can set up. So we need partnerships, but to do what? What do we need these partnerships for? What? There is no institution that would be useful if it does not make its principal mission the prosperity of the people. You know I am a political activist since forever. I was in the student union. I went from being a communist to a liberal. I first became a militant as a communist union of students. And that was part of what I did. And then I, now I'm sort of, then I became a businessman. I became sort of mainstreamed. But I can say that there is no institution that should exist or can exist if it is not turned towards the prosperity and a particularly shared prosperity. And it's the same with partnerships. If a partnership is not geared towards prosperity for all, it should not exist. So future institutions of Sahelian states and everywhere in Africa, they should really highlight one element that I feel is the most important, and that is education. Education. The new technological sciences have a characteristic of feature. They are factors that equalize everyone in society. So thanks to social media and thanks to AI and digital world and microchips, the youth of Africa can immediately become up to par with the West. This is only possible if we have already trained the young people. Secondly is agriculture. The second domain is agriculture. Once again, we must leave these post-colonial agricultural institutions because people work hard but all the raw materials are exported. We export gold, cotton that's going to make the Levi's in a foreign country that I will buy later in Africa. So that's a problem. All of our raw materials are exported. We are only exporting our raw materials. We are very little, we are not involved enough in the fabrication. In manufacturing ourselves. So we need to work towards the industrialization of Africa. We need institutions for the future so that those in charge in Africa they must fight for this. They must. They must make education a priority, especially in new technologies even for little girls and also modern agriculture. Of course there will be an effect. Those who are living in rural areas there will be new technologies and artificial intelligence that will provoke a certain level of urbanism. I think that in 2050, 60% of Africans will be living in urban areas and often times in poverty. So there will be delinquency and gangs and all sorts of problems. So there won't just be terrorism. There are phenomena of insecurity linked to urban problems that have not been properly controlled or dealt with. So these decisions so that's not really the key which are making decisions which are taking decisions that will not in my opinion serve the economic interests that we have to open up. Whatever the problem may be decisions made by the government in our African tradition we need to agree to not insult the other. So what we're making is important. We cannot close ourselves off. These are really important. We can't let go of that. And then the United States the greatest military power the greatest economic power in the world even the greatest scientific power ultimately all of those the bosses they now need to start thinking step back and start thinking about changing the paradigm. You know it's not it's nothing new to say I think I think it's true for the United States it's true for other great powers Africa needs to be looked at differently if only because global security and collective defense requires that Africa needs to be looked at differently and I really want to insist on this crisis of multilateralism which is digging into this region with the kind of the rule of the biggest and the mightiest so let's look at differently at questions of debt for example because that is often the only way to get Africans out of this economic breakdown but we need to take a new look at the loans that are made to develop the African continent we can't continue on with the current interest rates and with the periods the dates of these Sahel countries we need to be need to be giving 20 to 25 years on current debt I'm not even talking about future debt I mean a lot of analysts are saying that 2024 will be the default year the payment default year for a lot of countries so urgently and the US can do this the bosses can do this they can do it they can take that decision to lengthen the repayment period and you have compatriots Jeffrey Sachs who have been thinking about that topic he's quite interesting maybe it could be interesting to look at what he's been doing recently I'm not always, I don't agree with him on everything but I think he's working on some interesting things we should revisit the payment period for current debt and then for future debt we need to create a whole new paradigm for that the current framing of the Bretton Woods does not work, it will not work it cannot work and I'll conclude on that point I want to remind you that in the 80s there was a structural adjustment plan and that structural adjustment plan destroyed the education sector in the Sahel the education sector all of a sudden just taking the example of Mali we had schools that had to divide students into two categories they had morning school and then the afternoon school because there were not enough teachers the state had to get rid of teachers because this structural adjustment plan imposed a reduction of the payroll of school payroll can you imagine in this post-colonial stage a state that was just starting out the trauma of colonization after the great conflict of the war of independence 20 years, just 20 years on it did not help us reconstruct our nation and we had these incidents that condemned an entire generation of young Africans don't be surprised that a decade later you are seeing the problems that we saw in the 1990s the speech of course it was a specific incident when I was young in 1980-1981 there was the student strike in Mali which was so violent and the clandestine political organizations that fought against power Musa Traore at the time but that was a symptom of things that had started so much earlier the French will have their own point of view on what happened then but there were other things that happened before and this policy of structural adjustment condemned, and I'm saying it again condemned an entire generation of Africans not just teachers, but more so students students, our education system did not provide quality education for more than 30 years and now we see the outcome these are young people who are vulnerable to radicalization who are often exposed to speech, to discourse that doesn't necessarily come from Africa but look for 40 years we were seeing France bringing a certain discourse to the table but we're seeing young people who never had the solid cultural grounding to be able to face those policies of influence they were not able to resist and so education is what counts I absolutely agree to support an economic system that is built on a whole new paradigm I really insist on that scientific education for young Sahelian girls it's so important, thank you minister I wish that we had more time to ask questions about peace security and so on in Sahel but I'm looking at the clock and I think maybe we should move on to the answers now who wants to go first so please some rules here state your name institution and a sentence with a question mark at the end hello, good afternoon, good morning thank you for your remarks I'm a doctoral student at Howard University I am doing African studies the minister said a lot of things that were very interesting and in your conclusion in particular when you spoke about the model of institutions that needs to change its center of interest needs to focus on prosperity I think I was a bit confused by the fact that for me it seems like the development models that are currently being used in Africa are models that are mostly taking into account the western reality and when we talk about security with these new countries that are we taking into account the sensitivities of the population the issues are the models we use directly linked to the population do you think that these people or these new leaders the new leaders in these countries have seized on something have grasped something that has permitted a certain awakening regardless of what the ultimate political orientations might be you also spoke about education so what type of education do you think is best for Africa because also these days this education is based on post-colonial models which often turn Africans into parrots who just repeat what they've been told and so I think that's an important question to be thinking about but I agree with you on that point maybe you could just expand on it that was two questions those were for me right for the minister for the general yes so I talk about prosperity and maybe it's surprising coming from a foreign minister of defense to be talking about we need a more economic solution rather than a military solution because I think we've over militarized various issues you know every time we opt for solely military solutions we become increasingly dependent on our military in terms of GDP and so there's fallout for the health sector the education sector and so on so anyways we need to rethink because we're here to talk about peace and security for those issues we still need to have less military solutions even though sometimes they are important for fighting terrorism for example but we need to prioritize crisis resolution measures that give more resources to economic solutions cultural integration solutions etc and yes of course of course we've been told in 1492 Columbus discovered America come on that's not true Abu Baku went out and discovered things before him he discovered Indians he discovered people who were already there but that's what we were told at the time Christopher Columbus discovered America we learned that Marco Polo was a great champion no so anyway I mean I can go on with different examples like that you know what we say the day that animals learn to write a lot of hunters will feel ashamed people used to say shame on the conquerors colonization slavery these are the results of military defeat well with slavery there were others sort of complicit actors when we see the results of these military defeats because one party was stronger than another what happens next after that you have to reinvent you have to reinvent yourself it's important no matter who we are wherever we come from when something like that happens we have to reestablish a certain historical truth right other great intellectuals have done it sonica there are others I don't know if you've read roots you should read it very interesting that corpus is there that helps us revisit the principles of education for our youth because I digress psychologically maybe it's a cheap digression but we have to learn to hold ourselves in greater esteem this is extremely important we're here in washington our ancestors contributed to washington dc just now when we arrived we saw we saw oh we went to the lincoln memorial it was a famous speech that was given here so we can be proud of these things but I'm not one of those people who wants revenge no I want a happy, joyful, hard working and prosperous africa I don't want an africa who's always at war even though we have to assert ourselves at the table we have to say to the US government what we want and what we do not want we have to say to the EU what we want and what we do not want we must do that but ultimately if we decide to agree on certain decisions that have been made for us elsewhere then we can't complain later thank you minister question I'm Madame Bechon from Cameroon I have benefited from a fellowship at Cameroon University I would like to ask you a simple question because it seems like you're saying that ECOWAS is not broken that it is not having problems so I want to reframe the question so what does ECOWAS plan to do because you know that as an African Africans we believe in ECOWAS which is a strong example of the protection of human rights and democracy in Africa well ECOWAS is not broken then it follows and this is kind of my question it follows what can we expect from ECOWAS there have been recommendations there were threats that were then mitigated what can we expect from ECOWAS it is fortunate that we are experiencing this morning because there there is a great thinker Albert Einstein I think there is a street named after him here in the American capital he said it is not those who do harm of whom we should be afraid it is those who see bad things being evil being done and do nothing to stop it we have alluded perhaps voluntarily or involuntarily the causes of the instability of the region which is terrorism this this terrorism rooted itself anchored itself in the poverty of the populations in the precarity of the people in the total absence of security human security and when I speak of human security I join the minister in speaking of education health in the domains of economic markets farming and also we have seen that these terrorists come to the populations and say in 48 hours we will be there they come they take their they destroy their their culture their crops and when did this start so the first institution that came in 2012 was eco us it's very important what we must not forget but we do forget too quickly earlier I speak earlier I said it's very good that this conversation take place in the US capital it is a good sign it is an important sign that terrorists and those who support them imagine 5000 motorcycles 10,000 motorcycles that show up in a very arid area and permit allow the terrorists to take action but it is not this that will allow the eco us to intervene now I'm just looking at the sources of instability so eco us intervened and then afterwards the president beka solicited assistance from France from which the operation serval president jukunda akoli he was the the transitionary president yes and Ibeka therefore saw the french arrive to fight terrorism and the operation stopped the progression of terrorism very clearly quickly the general who was in charge of this mission was a personal friend and after that there was bakan there was minusma minusma was the intervention of the international community but terrorism continued to evolve on the ground so the fundamental question we must ask minusma had 13,000 men 13,000 troops sent by 110 countries from the entire world including the us the first air power of the world and also Russia and China Turkey if you want to give a name all of these countries were part of minusma and billions were spent to fight terrorists who were perhaps less than 10,000 and we were unable to defeat them because of the because of politics because of governance because of these social economic policies of these governments the sayel and so forth ikawas took important decisions while I was there as a commissioner of political affairs and these decisions allowed the transitionary governments to reflect but as you know in every institution there can be a problem of leadership at a given time I can tell you that the leadership of ikawas at a certain time was weak and the vision played a role played a role downstream by the heads of state that participated in this weekend vision and as we said there is a do you agree do you agree that other today today there are there are today issues with the heads of state there are sanctions that are included in the protocols of foreign affairs at that time while we were in the midst of all of this activity we never impeded the foreign ministers to to move to to make decisions and the last decisions taken in terms of Niger I think that the decision of sending troops to Niger from ikawas were taken it was an emotional response it was a sort of emotional response from the heads of state because each one of them asked them what next so there were three things that the politicians may or may not agree with the first being the conquest of of power secondly you have to achieve power then you have to know how to manage it so first you reach power then you have to manage it then you have to know how to conserve that power and this is true in the entire world if we these three things are true even here in the united states when the republican party does not want to leave when the conservatives are in power they do not want to leave by all means necessary they want to stay in power so the reality that we are living currently in west Africa in terms of the decisions of things that have not come to a good conclusion there is also the intervention of the media coming off and the intervention from the big powers so any news coming out of washington today is heard throughout the world immediately so so the whole problem stem from the lack of human security so really the main conclusion of our discussion is that we must work towards the development of human security to assure human security eco us put in place a plan to fight terrorism an action plan to fight terrorism and it is myself who brought together all of the chiefs of tafs including from Chad and from Mauritania we put together an action plan with eight pillars education health development infrastructure border surveillance coordination for a budget of two billion three hundred thousand million dollars and we received not a money in 2020 from 2020 to 2024 I am the one who worked on this who put this plan together I have it here with me if you allow Madam Ambassador here is the plan here is the action plan it is in English and in French but when the war in Ukraine surfaced it was a geopolitical issue the 44 billion quickly went to Ukraine whereas we said we only need 2.3 billion dollars to stop put an end to terrorism so there will be coup d'etat so democracy can be developed so human security can be guaranteed and this is why I say that what is happening today is extremely important and I thank you all who have brought together this meeting thank you 30 seconds 30 seconds when I say I don't say that the motor is broken I say it is stalled and so it needs to be repaired I want to be very very clear on that it is stalled but it is not broken it is in disrepair eko was thank you thanks I will follow with a member of congress she is on the house of foreign affairs committee and specifically the subcommittee on Africa so she is closely following this whole situation in the region and what is going on with eko was so what we want to know specifically is what you all think the marshal plan was mentioned and as well as నిరామాసాలా ఍డిందలాగౕంారికి నిలామిటిక౾లాటాన పనికాలా లికతానినాంందిలి మారియాలార౿కూదోరానినిలికి పనియిలిఆనా నిసిరాయిని ప and so there are structures that use MCC is an example of something the United States government is trying to do to encourage infrastructure investment. But there are some problems with MCC in that, well you can call them conditionalities, some of which of course are our principles, but we need to rethink that and to the extent that we can connect these countries that need electricity, that need road work, that need investment in their educational systems. I think those are the kinds of programs that our Congress can look at and put a higher priority on and we haven't. We haven't created an incentive program that makes it easier for American companies that want to do work in the Sahel and even for the university partnerships and collaboration, collaboration on the medical front. There are ways where we can build infrastructure support that's going to help towards this human security that was just alluded to. So refashioning a specific MCC slash Sahel type program I think would be something that would be very important to look at. The notion of getting civil society engagement and the idea of populations not having confidence in their elite, the elite equals the political class very often and so there does have to be a different kind of engagement that Congress should have with other kinds, with a middle class that's not a political class. But at the same time I think if Congress had a little bit more engagement with the various national assemblies in these countries I think that also is very important, very often they send staffers, but you don't see a lot of cross communication. Some of these, when I was ambassador to Niger sometimes they said we don't know how to draft certain kinds of legislation. How would you frame such a thing? And I think the kinds of exchanges on that level, how do we set up an environmental protection regime for example? How do we really set up a regime that's going to be looking at corruption and graft within the state? I think those kinds of things, if our Congress were to demonstrate that kind of interest in their counterparts and in what's going on there I think that would get a lot of people's attention and that would show the public civil society that the United States still cares and we're beginning to lose that glow to that battle. Thank you. In our senior study group of work there are specific recommendations on Congress. Take a copy. Dernière question. Dernière question. Dernière question. Dernière question. Dernière question. Dernière question. Hello to all. I'm ambassador of Mali, the chef of mission actually I was. It's an honor to see two of my prior supervisors. We worked on missions together for the elections of Côte d'Ivoire in 2020. So thank you for these exchanges. Before continuing I would like to make a suggestion. Would it be useful should this happen again to have officials from these countries concerned by this question, perhaps having them present also that would better enable to open this discussion. I would like to also come back to a few comments that were made. Especially comments about the involvement of ECOWAS in anti-terrorism. I think we have to note that ECOWAS started to deploy in December 2012. And it changed status to have MISMA in 2013. And this was not a political mission. It was a peace initiative for MISMA. But that exacerbated issues in the region for the population. We saw what happened. So that was for MISMA. But in terms of the three countries, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, what's important is to know that we shouldn't be limited to statements or to be talking about leaving ECOWAS. But we have to look at these three big issues. Collective defense amongst others. So these states are not closed off. They are open to others on these bigger collaborative issues. So we have to be thinking about partnerships but still respecting the sovereignty of states. And I think that's an important point because to go back to the comment... Do you have a question? Yes, but this is just the comment part. To go back to Ambassador Williams, we need conversation. We can't have a situation where the U.S., for example, sees our countries as pariahs. No, they need to improve communication and conversation. I'll stop there. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you so much. Unfortunately we have to conclude this discussion, which I'm sure will continue in the hallway. I would like to thank Ambassador Williams. Thank you Minister Kuli-Bali. It was an honor to have you with us. And General Benzal, thank you for your travel to come here.