 So with that, I'll pass over to Rory. Thanks, Porig, and thank you, Achil, as well, for coming here. These conversations in the IAEA are always an important moment. But I think today's one is particularly interesting, because it brings together different strands of relationships, discussions that sometimes happen in different silos. And I think it's fantastic, Achil. La Sada has come to give us that opportunity, a conversation where we can bring together development, humanitarian response, security, proximity, migration, and many other themes, including, I think, climate and other elements that are also part of the melange of issues, which the Sahel is struggling to deal with. And I think that we collectively, as EU member states, are also struggling to respond to. It's fantastic that we have a diplomat of the caliber of Achil La Sada, Fernandez, as the EU special representative for the Sahel. And when we say the EU special representative, that's sort of a distancing already. He's our special representative. He might not quite have as Irish accent perfected yet. But by the end of these couple of days, he'll have learned a few words like grand and a few things like that. And Achil has been doing this job for a while. So I think we learn a lot from what he says. He's been effectively a special representative for the Sahel since 2015, because before the EU appointed him, he was Spain's representative. And he brought to the task as well the experience of having been the Spanish ambassador in Kuwait, Nigeria, and Kabul. So he doesn't like easy cities. So we probably won't stay here with us for too long. We could do hardship here too, if you want. We'll bring you to a few places on the way to the airport. And just to prove that this is a theme that he really understands, Achil has also worked for the Spanish Foreign Ministry in Cuba with NATO, which must have been a real hardship post. The UN Geneva, which I think was probably or an or in Chile, and he started his career abroad in Ethiopia. And in between he had to go and live in Madrid, which I think you have our sympathies for that. The Sahel is a funny place if you're an Irish diplomat, because we're not properly present there, notwithstanding the government's commitment as manifest by the presence of soldiers there. First of all, it's part of the U-training mission, but also now as part of MINUSMA. And that's something that I think as a foreign ministry. We're very conscious of, and we know we need to respond. We do put money in as part of the collective response. And some of that money goes to support the work of very fine Irish NGOs across the G5 Sahel and across the whole Sahel, which of course goes from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. And it's an interesting, troubled, challenging, and brilliant region. And certainly in terms of the Francophone piece, we don't have a great story. I think in the Anglophone piece, we've been in the Sahel for a very long time. And I know people in this room cut their teeth in various Sudan's, probably lost a few teeth in the various Sudan's as well. You know, in Eritrea, but we have to do better in Francophone Africa, and we're very conscious of that. And we're grateful too for the Irish NGOs that are there. And why do we have to do better? I think partly it's because in our white paper that we did earlier this year, and thank you to those who gave us really good participation in that. You know, we recognize that the interconnection of the world and our place within that, we recognize that we have to deal with those furthest behind first. And I think we've evolving a language around global citizenry as well. And I think also increasingly conscious of proximity. The world is a smaller place than it used to be. And it's not far by sea from here to Senegal. It's not far from North Africa to the southern parts of Europe as well. And so we are interconnected. And this is a century where if we don't recognize properly those interconnections between Europe and Africa, the possibility that Africa has to leapfrog forward will be missed. There's a writer that I found when I was thinking about today called T.K. Nalaka, I know nothing about him. But he has a good quote, which I think is a nice way to end, which is, he said, quote, when any country in the Sahel sneezes, the rest of the region catches pneumonia. The men there would have clicked their tongues and roofly nodded their heads. That will lie, I don't know what that means, but maybe you can tell us. This was the truth. And I think it's that sense of when somewhere else that's not that far away, is in danger, we have to respond. Partly because it's the good thing to do as humans, but also because it's in our selfish interest. And that's why it's important that we support our special representative for the Sahel. But it's also really important that we hear from you so we understand what that support should be and we understand the challenges that you're trying to address on our behalf. So I'm looking forward greatly to hearing what you have to say to Sahel. Thank you very much. Yeah, first of all, thank you. Thank you, Rory, for these words. Thank you, the Institute also for inviting me. I feel very honored to be here really today. And I like the name of the Institute, which is International and European Affairs. I think it shows how Europe is in your heart and how Europe can be our house for all of us, our home for all of us. Thank you for also in this very prestigious place to give me the opportunity to talk about the Sahel that I know I'm talking to academics. Some of you are very knowledgeable about the situation and I have no doubt that many of the things I would say, you know them already. But the good thing of the Sahel also, the important thing of the Sahel that is there is a constant evolution in the Sahel. Actually as EU special representative, which is recorded and taken in the Lisbon Treaty in the Article 33, my mission mainly is to try to coordinate and to give a coherent approach of the EU to the Sahel in concrete and the others representative to the task or the mandate that they have on a specific subject. It's not easy because the EU also, as is different positions that we have the parliament, as you know, we have the council, we have the ES, we have the commission, but the most important and we have the member states, which are the, without the member states, we won't have the EU of course. Then the important thing is just to try to have a coherent approach and that's mainly the task of the EU special representative representative. I would like as I'm talking to academics, et cetera, I would like to talk about four different aspects or four different points because we are now at a critical moment. It comes very, it's a real good opportunity as a critical moment where one of the heart of my mandate, which is the peace process in Mali is as a sort of blockage at that moment and when on the other hand, we have these G5 which is taking more importance but with a lot of limitations as we're going to see. Then I would like first, and as I'm talking to academics to divide in four parts my intervention. The first one, and I think it's important, what is the Sahel? Because there are different concept of Sahel. The second one is what the EU is doing for the Sahel. The third one, I will talk about the new initiatives which are taking place today and finally I will talk about the principles and the challenges that we have ahead of us and that we have to confront in order to have a proper and well coordinated action. Then the first big question is the concept of Sahel. It's not only an academic question, it goes beyond that with no doubt. And I've developed a theory, which you can find some other, I distinguish three different Sahel. A geographic one, what I called an institutional one, and a third one which I called a geo-strategical one. First you know that the world Sahel in Arab means border, means the border, the limitation between one other. Yes, it's the limitation between the Saharan African and the green Africa, so to say, or the Sub-Saharan Africa. Is this French, is this element which is important to know, it's a limitation. There is a change between one part and the other. But then let's start with the first one, the geographical definition. It's very easy to say, and you can understand it very easily. It's this strip of land which has more or less 5,400 kilometers long from the Atlantic Sea to the Red Sea, and more or less 700, 500 kilometers large in all these areas. This goes through 11 countries, 11 countries which have more or less the same characteristic. And we have from the geographical point of view exactly the same elements. And it's very easy from the geographical point of view, the Sahel is very easy to understand. The second one or the second concept which I've called the institutional one is a bit different. First why institutional? I invented this name because there is an institution you all know about it, but it's not so well known in the public. It's the famous G5. The G5 which is composed by Mauritania, by Mali, by Volkina Faso, by Niger and by Chad, has been created by a sovereign decision of five heads of states, the five heads of state at that time who decided to create an organization because they thought that they have the same problem. And the first element which I want to say, they realized that the big problems of the big threats that they were facing were regional. Then if the threats are regional, the answer must be regional. That's why the G5 started by this proper will of these five heads of state. And they created an organization which a very simple structure, a presidency which is rotative. Now the presidency is taken by Volkina Faso. It will be taken very soon in February by Mauritania. They have a permanent secretariat with headquarters in Noixot with a very simple structure. A permanent secretary and if you visited the place is not really the big organization as you have been probably some of you in the EU which is even more impressive at the UN. The building of the EU is more impressive than the UN. Well no, if you go to the G5 you wouldn't find that. It's a very simple structure with little means and actually the European countries wanted to help the G5 from the beginning and that's one of the first contradiction that we have. We said we don't want to create a big structure to help you to create a big structure. We want something very simple that you can manage. The problem now is that they've taken more and more capacity and with this little structure that we have imposed more or less to them, there are some doubts that they are capable of facing really the situation. What we ask them to do, what we ask them to do, we'll come to that a bit later. But this organization with these simple structures as I said, now the permanent secretariat is headed by Maman Siddiqui, who is from Niger, a very, very well-known person in Africa and actually studied in Spain. I have somebody from Spain studied in Spain and it's also well formed. I speak with him in Spanish usually. We have then this very simple structure which is based on two elements, on two actions mainly, security and development. For in the security side, they decided to create a joint force. I was present when they decided to create this joint force. It was in Jamena in November 2015. When they say, I was at that moment with my Spanish hat actually, some days before I started as a youth, they decided that five heads of state went on a specific room, came out and said, we're going to create a joint force. We all said, all of us, all of us at that time, how are they going to create a joint force in the five poorest countries in the world? Is that possible? How are they going to manage to do that? It's something that we cannot imagine. We almost laugh at it, but at that moment, one person, and I think we must recognize that, and I wasn't in the EU at that moment. Federica Mogherini came out when this was announced and said, the EU is going to support this joint force with 50 million. It was an impact, it created an impact. Of course, the joint force had to wait almost one year, more than one year until they really decided to adopt the concept of operation and to adopt all the different instruments later. That was in February 2017. But they want to create the joint force. And they come with a second idea, not only security, but also in development. We want a Marshall plan for Africa and for the Sahel, for our organization. With some difficulties and some very doubtful proposals, for instance, to create Sahel airways, that we say, well, I mean, Sahel over a fast train from Noachok to Jamina, I mean. But they wanted really to create an infrastructure, to have a lot of infrastructure, and with the Marshall plan, and they would ask member states from the Europe, from the Western world to finance that. And that, and therefore we have the G5, and we'll talk again after about the G5 and what it entails. But the G5, little by little, although at the beginning, had a lot of difficulties to come out because they had a lot of enemies. Some organization didn't like it in Africa because they thought it will retain some of the health from the Western country, we'll go to them. And some other, for security reasons, were not either very comfortable with this idea because they thought that they will lose some influence. For instance, Algeria at the beginning, which is a main player in the region, and I work very closely with them, has never liked from the beginning the G5. Now, yes, now there is an adaptation from the moment that the UN has been really considering it as a proper organization, and it comes now in all the resolutions, and there is always a talk in the Secretary-Consult about the G5, about the future, and this structure and system. Then that's the second concept of the Sahel. This concept, what I call the institutional one, because of this institution, these five countries which compose the Sahel. But you will tell me the Sahel is more than that. There's not only five countries. And that's why I built this idea to talk about the geostrategical concept of the Sahel. The geostrategical concept take into account all the countries which have an impact and influence on the Sahel, the crisis and the organizations. And I've divided it in three circles. The first circle, of course, are the five countries of the G5s themselves. This is the main aspect, really the most important one. The second one, the crisis. Which crisis have an impact today on them? Have, and still have on the Sahel, the Libyan crisis? You cannot understand what happened in Mali if you don't take into consideration what happened in Libya. And actually, the Libyan crisis really allows in Mali, mainly, that the Tuareg rebellion was a success at the beginning. Because in Niger, on the other hand, the Niger authorities stopped the Tuaregs, take their arms away, but this wasn't done in Mali. That was one of the main problem. Then we have two crisis, mainly. The Libyan one and also the Nigerian one. The Nigerian created by Boko Haram. That's why now there is this idea in United Nations, in the EU also, to assimilate more and more Sahel and Lakshad Basin. You know that to face the crisis in Lakshad Basin, they created the joint task force, the multinational joint task force, MNGTF, to fight, composed by four countries, the three countries around the leg chart. The four, sorry, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, plus Benin, which participate on security questions with them. Four, these countries have created an army, a joint army which works more or less to fight Boko Haram, and they had some success. The Boko Haram crisis is now closely linked to the crisis in the Sahel. And we know by intelligence information that some in some of the camps of terrorist camps for training groups of Boko Haram have been working on Malian soil and vice versa. We know that by information. Then there is a link. There is an international, again, we talk about the regionalization and we talk later of the EU. There is also a regionalization of the terrorist actors in the ground. This is, I said, the second circle. These two big crisis which had a direct impact on the Sahel. And there is also what I said in the countries or organization. Countries which compose these third circles, Algeria, I said it before, Algeria is a fundamental actor. Algeria, I have constant talks either with the minister for the affairs of Algeria or with the authorities in Algeria. They are fundamental, but today Algeria is under a big internal problem as we all know. And that's why the situation may be as a problem to evolve. Algeria is with no doubt one. And Algeria, again, talking about Boko Haram is also a fundamental one. And Senegal, Senegal by itself, geographically speaking, is a Sahel in a country. But they are not included in the G5. They were not very happy with this idea. They thought that the G5 at the beginning was against them. But we had this argument to tell them. And I had this argument even to expose to them. Actually, the five countries that we're talking are weak in their institution, weak in the governance, poor without any problem or prospect. With a lot of problem to progress. Senegal, when I talk to them, Senegal, one of the only countries in Africa who never had a good data, a strong institution, developing very quickly, they have nothing to do with them. It's better that these five countries stick together and all the rest participate in this third circle. Then Senegal, of course, is another one. And now a new actor who wants to be more and more active and is Morocco. Of course, because his brother, Algeria, is very much involved. Morocco wants to be involved. And the problem between Morocco and Algeria is well known by all of you, make more difficult sometimes to have a proper action in the region. Nevertheless, the Maghreb dimension, which is present in the Maghreb, must not be forgotten and we have to work very closely also with the Moroccans. We are more and more present in the region through banking system, through the economy and also the influence himself of the king of Morocco over this region for centuries. Then I think with this, and when we see the countries, but they're not only countries which participate in the SIL. They're also organization in this third circle. And we have, of course, the African Union. The African Union has a special, a high representative in Mali for the peace process, which is former president of Burundi, Uyoya, the African Union is very active in all these, in all the elements in the Sahel and wants to be very active, although there's been, there was at the beginning, a sort of reticence, so to say, with the creation of the G5 because they didn't like it either. They prefer to use their own security instrument, but they realize that these five countries now is better to have them together in order that they can play together. There is echo was on the same problem that what happened before with the EU, they were not too happy with the creation of the G5, but nevertheless, now there's been a new evolution which I will talk later, which makes that they try to collaborate and cooperate very closely, and that's what us as European and as EU we are pushing forward. And of course, the EU, although out of the region, is also an important actor with the UN. This is, I think I wanted to see these three kinds of concepts which help us a little bit. Well, my mandate actually, the mandate approved by member states, is the third one, is your strategical one, because it makes me participate not only in the five countries, but all the surrounding countries in the Maghreb and with the international organizations, and also with the black chat basin which is strategically linked to the other one. Having seen that, I would like to now to define not only the geographical, institutional and geostatistical one, but what are the main challenges that this region is facing? I always say that unfortunately, the Sahel is a polygon of crisis. We find that all the crisis that we want, all the crisis that we want, we have a security crisis, we have a political crisis, we have an economic and development crisis, and all the elements can, and I will go quickly through them very, very quickly. Above all, we'll talk about the security one. Yes, there is a radicalization in the zone and now we are facing a terrible situation, excuse me, a terrible situation in which the insecurity is growing at a very fast speed, very fast unfortunately. We have the insecurity which started in the Mali. To understand the situation, we have to start from the Malian crisis which started in Mali, which is now more or less channel and I can answer many questions on the peace process in Mali, as I'm the mediator on behalf of the EU in the peace process, but it's the heart and the beginning of everything in the Sahel today of this insecurity. It started there in the north, now it's more or less channel, although the process is a bit blocked. We hope that we'll overcome the situation. It went down to the south and the Jihadist groups have been clever enough to mutate the threat which at the beginning was a pure threat Jihadist against the rest of the world, so to say, to take advantage of ancestral confrontations or clashes between farmers and herders, which are traditional in the region, between different community groups. I don't like to talk ethnic groups because they're also mixed together. That to talk ethnic groups would be maybe a mistake, but yes, community groups. It's better to say intercommunity clashes, take advantage of these clashes to create chaos among them and to take advantage of this situation. And this insecurity is going down from the north to the center of Mali, to the south of Mali, to the part of Burkina Faso, going down to Burkina Faso and even affecting now some of the western countries, of some of countries of western Africa, as Togo, as Benin, as even Ghana, in the northern part of Ghana. Then we see that there is this terrible danger which unfortunately can affect a lot of this country, and that's why the situation now is evolving very quickly. Then we have this security challenge which is there and it becomes more and more obvious and with a big need to act. But we have also a political challenge. A political challenge because there is, as I said, at the beginning, a lack of governance, problem of governance, problem of corruption in this country. There are weak countries with very weak institutions and we are on top of that in the political side with a peace process. I know that this word is very important also in Ireland, and with a peace process in Mali, which is, as I said before, unfortunately blocked. It's blocked because of the opposition of some of the movement, of the armed movement and the government to go ahead with the implementation, with the quick implementation of the agreement of Algiers, which was approved and ratified by all the parts of the agreement and also by the international community and among them by the European Union. It was, this agreement must be absolutely implemented and in all the talks, all the intervention, for instance, of Federica Morellini, of all the members of the international community, we urge, always, the different parts, the three parts we have signed the agreement, which is the government, la plateforme and in La SEMA, la coordination of the three parts, these two movements were fighting together, now they are at least around the table, to really implement the agreement. I can answer to question about the agreement, I can talk always about the agreement, also Frederic here has been followed that from the very beginning, but this is a bit of the key question, to have a solution. I always say the same sentence, we won't have peace in the Sahel if there is no peace in Mali, because the agreement is essential to the proper balance in the security sector. When they try me to define how we stand, I say there was a blockage, I always say also the same phrase, we don't go as fast as we hope, but not as slowly as we feared and with that, more or less, in a diplomatic way, we solve everything because there is no other way than to progress and to accept this, that the peace process goes ahead. There is, as I said, Le Comité de Suïd-la-Corps, this foreign committee which now is not meeting, I attend once a month with my colleague, Frédéric Mathieu, we attend once a month there and on behalf of the UAE, I try always to push all the elements of this agreement, let's do hope that we'll have one meeting as soon as possible because it's compulsory by the agreement itself, which has been recorded by the UN, to have one meeting of this committee of Suïd-la-Corps, this following committee of the agreement once a month. Let's see what is gonna happen because one other idea which must be very clear, there is no plan B and that's a message that we give to the parts. There is no plan B to the agreement. The agreement was negotiated in Algeria, was signed in two steps then in Mali and the international community really support this agreement, but that's another problem in the political aspect. But I said also it was the situation in the Sahel, we found that all the crisis, there is also a very deep and terrible economic crisis, a crisis of development. If you imagine that in the Sahel, in the sub-Saharan Africa, sorry, the rent, the income per capita is more or less $1,400. The countries in the Sahel, the only one who reaches this average more or less is Mauritania with $1,100. And then we go to a country like Niger who doesn't reach the 400 euros, $100. I think I heard today the figure and I was very impressed that here in Ireland you are over 70,000 of income per person. It's something very impressive. I mean, you see that's what I've heard today at least. But anyway, in Europe all the countries are above 30, 35,000, that's in Spain I think 36,000. All are above this figure. When we talk of 400 euros, you imagine the level of poverty that there is in a country like Niger is one. I always say I have five clients, which are these five countries of the G5 and unfortunately there are the five poorest countries in the world. But those are my clients and I have to support and we have all to support them. Then there is a problem of course of development and I won't go on too much because you are very clear. Another big element which helps us to understand what's happening in the Sahel is the demographic explosion. There is a proper demographic explosion. A country like Niger for instance, a woman has an average of more than 7.4 children per woman. That shows that if a woman has not children, the other one has to have at least 14 or 15. You imagine the incredible push that this can have and the impact that in 20 or 30 years this can have for Europe. That's why again I say the security of the Sahel is the security of Europe. Because this is happening in front of our eyes at a very quick speed. And I will talk about that with radicalization also. There is another problem linked to this one very closely, climatic change. It's very obvious if you go to the lake chat. I know that some people say that it's cyclic, the lake chat has been bigger, it's smaller, but you see very properly the diminution of the lake chat which is 10% of what it was in less than 60 years ago. It's been very quick. It's true now that apparently it's refilling a little bit. But nevertheless, these has created that there's less land, less, more people than more fight against herders, against farmers. There are more confrontation because of the climatic change. And there's one place in the Sahel and I wouldn't talk about the lake chat. In the rest, in the area of the Littaco Gourmet, in the place of the three borders between Niger, Chad, Niger, Burkina and Mali, in this area, the climatic change has a real strong impact because there are less land and they're fighting for the lands. They're fighting for their herds. They're fighting to till the land that doesn't exist and that doesn't exist anymore. This of course makes another crisis and which I know is very popular to talk about it, is the migration one. Of course, this demographic explosion, the less opportunity, less poor situation of this country makes that the one migrate. Young people want to migrate and there is an incredible strength of young people who want to go absolutely out because they don't feel that where they are, they have any opportunities ahead of them. These are more or less the characteristic of the Sahel, broadly speaking, with these three concepts and the main characteristics that they have. Well, you say that very well. This is what we ever had, but Ireland contributed very heavily to the EU, etc. What is the EU doing? What are we doing? Are we doing something to face that? Well, we must accept that the EU in this aspect saw what is going to happen and it was the first one in 2011 to adopt a strategy. A strategy which is very simple. It is based on one principle, no security without development, no development without security. Today now, this is widely accepted, but as I said before, I was in Afghanistan and there was a big difficulty so that military worked with NGOs. There were big difficulties to accept this concept because everyone wanted to be on the side. Nowadays, we realize that mainly in the Sahel, maybe in other parts we can discuss about it, but mainly in the Sahel, as in security, as it says, has grown up to big proportions, there cannot be development without security. No NGOs are going to go to places where the life at stake are at stake. Then therefore, there is no other way that to link both of them. And the EU strategy is axed towards five countries. You will not be surprised if you realize that the five countries of the strategy are the countries of the G5. They are the five countries which are received, actually we are received this strategy, but the strategy has been complemented by the integrated approach of the EU which taking consideration not only security, development, but also political question, humanitarian one and all the crisis that I've described. This is the integrated approach of the EU to tackle the problem of the Sahel. Well, it's very well to have a strategy, it's very well to have five countries to address too, but now we need something else. We need some action. And yes, there is a regional action plan, a regional action plan which was adopted in 2015 and which will be finishing in 2020 and we'll start, try to delimitate where were the main action that the EU had to do with the participation of member states. The importance of this regional action plan was not only that he established the priorities, but also that the regional action plan did, it tried to establish which responsibilities were for each one. That was what tried to do the regional action plan was to establish four priorities. The first one, you would understand, is for the problem I said before, I don't want to go on too much on that. The second one is preventing radicalization and this is very important and there are many programs to prevent radicalization. The third one is migration. We couldn't have that without migration and that's why the EU convened a meeting in La Valeta in which they approved a special fund for adopting in a quick manner programs to tackle the root causes of migration. But when we say root causes of migration, all we say is everything. Which are the root causes of migration? Security, poverty, education, development, it's almost everything but formation of youth, schooling, et cetera. In order to prevent or to stop these young people to go outside of Africa and to try to find in their own place what they need. This is the third priority and the fourth priority is rated of course to security, to border control and the fight against traffics which actually is something which is very difficult to do because if you look at the Sahel, you go back through history in the Sahel. It's an area of traffics. It has always been like that. I've been talking for instance in Agadez which is one of the city in the middle of Niger which received all the migration from the home of Africa and all the migration from Western Africa would join there and go up to Libya. I've been talking to a man who said, well, I'm a driver. Before I was driving tourist because it's an impressive area. I mean, if you've ever been to the Sahara and to these areas, it's really impressive. I find it really beautiful but there were a lot of tourists. There was a flight between Marseille and Agadez, direct flight. Bringing tourists now of course, no tourists are there to go in this place, you can imagine. And they said, I was driving tourists. No tourists, I'm driving what they put on my back. Drugs, arms and unfortunately also migrants, illegal migrants. Although the word illegal is a bit complicated to us but let's put migrants. And if the EU didn't tackle this problem, I'm sure we'll have many questions about La Valeta and about the trust fund. It's something that we had really to fight against because the origin, and I was saying that during the lunch actually, I think the origin of the trust fund was only to finance the regional action plan. But it came at a moment when we saw in the television these horrible images of young boys died in the beach or drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. And then they decided that this fund, which was to finance with little money, finance with less money than now, finance the regional action plan will be really towards migration. And we created this fund with mainly two elements to try to approve very quickly the project and this project might have an immediate impact on the population. This was the trust fund, which now almost, it was 1.5 billion and almost all the money has been spent on the trust fund. But let's see what happened. The new commission probably will be, I hope so, it will be maybe refunded. And the last one, as I said, the border control and the fight against traffic. This is the regional action plan which come to an end in 2020 will have to negotiate a new regional action plan. The advantage of the regional action plan is also that it contains not only what the EU is doing in the region, but also what other, what member states are doing in the region and it gives you a good picture of everything which is done in the region. Then you say, well, it's very well to have a strategy, to have a regional action plan and well, but how do you do that? And then, yes, the EU has two kinds of instruments, what I call institutional instrument and financial one. Institutional instruments, my office, my own office is one institutional instrument to put in order the regional action plan actually is taking my mandate to implement the regional action plan. The EU delegations which are on the ground and also on the wider scope, our CSDP mission, our common policy and security and security and defense mission on the ground. We have in the region three main missions. One for the training and council of the military in Mali of the military army. They have already trained more than more than 70% of the old Malian forces, which is really important. I was talking during the lunch also, the big problem is the follow up. That's quite difficult, but they're doing really an incredible job. And we have on the civil side for the training of judges, training of in human rights, question of gender, question of terrorism, all question on the civil side, security and police, we have what we call a cap and we have two in the region, one in Mali and one in Niger, and one in Mali and Yucat Niger. Nowadays, the EU is proceeding on what we call the regionalization of these missions. As we have seen that the terrorists have regionalized because they unite from Boko Haram to Akmi to Almorabitun or to now Alansur Al Islam, the new one which has happened or in all the other organizations that terrorist organization on the ground. We have tried to regionalize our mission and there is a process which is taking place today in the EU in order to have, to make that these missions can train not only the Malian forces but also the Malian of the G5. It's a process where we are working in it and I think it's in good way, but member states have to give their agreement to all what we're doing and there are some reticences also, not only from member state, but also from some countries like Mali that say no, UTM was created for me, wasn't created for the others. Then we have to change the mandate which is not easy in the EU procedure but we're working at that and that's from my point of view is the only solution. Then we have, as I said, my institution, my office, the EU delegation and the CSDP missions. We have the instrument institutional but we have also, we need money because without money of course we cannot do that. We have the financial means. Of course, you know that in the region, the EU through the participate more or less with 3.5 billion euros in the region and we, if we add up everything which is given by member state individually, we'll reach maybe up the quantity of eight billion. I know that one of the first question you will ask me with all this money, how come that the situation is degrading and I can answer before you ask me. Well, if we weren't doing that probably we wouldn't go worse but yes, you're right. We must find ways and we are working at that, ways and means in order to make that this help or this contribution is made more properly and more and better. Then we have as fund, as I said, the European Development Fund, the 11th one with 2,500 billion, 2,500 billion, 2.5 billion, excuse me, 2,500 billion would be a bit too much. 2,500 million for the five countries in what we call in these horrible acronyms that we invent the RIP and the NIP, the National Indicative Program in the regional indicative programs and for the region 1,100. This makes 3.5 as I said. We have on second hand the trust fund that I talked before with 1.84 the region, 1.5 billion for the region and we have another instrument that is the African Peace Facility because you know that the EU has a lot of difficulties as far as security and defense is concerned. The treaties stop us from making many actions. Then we created sometimes a special fund, the European Development, the European, the APF, the African Peace Facility, sorry, which helped to contribute through organization like the EU for the peace and security in the region and this is what has been used with 100 million so far and 138 million which will come hopefully next year for the joint force of the G5. Then the EU, as I said, has taken its action mainly in these two sectors. In the Security One, the joint force, Mogherini as I said at the beginning, announced immediately the 50 million, 50 million that have been added. We convened a conference in Brussels in January 2018 and a sum of all the donors and a sum of more than 400 millions were disposable for the joint forces. The problem that sometimes is difficult to know exactly how this quantity is spent because some countries said we could give that in training. It's difficult to say how much is the training. What they want and what they need is equipment with no doubt but we are limited in the class of equipment we can give. And also on the development side, I told you they wanted what they call the Marshall plant. 10 minutes. I have to finish up now. I have to finish up now. Yes, we can. Okay, then it's very quickly, I've finished in two minutes. Then we have in the development side, we have them to have their famous Marshall plant which have been reduced to a program, priority investment program that we are helping through an organization which is called Alliance Sahel which has been created by France and Germany and France and Germany with the participation of the UNDP, the World Bank and the African Bank of Development. This Alliance Sahel which has channeled really some project which have a direct impact on the situation and on the ground. Now we have new initiatives. We have initiatives for instance within the EU, a very strong partnership which is being established between the EU and the G5 which has started by Federica Mogherini and I know that it's going to be prolonged by Minister Borrell when he will come into office. This strategic partnership will be definitely described in February next year with all the elements on security and development. There is a new French and German initiative in the framework of the G5 called the P3S, another acronym, the partnership for the Sahel on security and stability which the EU supports, very strongly and now we are working into this problem. Then finally to finish with then, as I see that the time is coming to an end, some challenge and some ideas on how to go on for the future. There is no doubt that security, development, the political aspect are something that we have to fulfill but which principle must we apply to that? And I see fundamentally two, coordination and ownership. These are the two elements and a third one urgency but urgency is obvious after all that I said and now this situation stand by today. Coordination, yes we need coordination. You have seen lots of initiatives from ourself, from France, from even the Americans have their own initiative. We started with the first strategy. Today there are 17 strategy in the Sahel. Then there is a big problem of coordination and what is the way of coordinating them? There are institutions, there is the plan, the ministerial platform for the strategy in the Sahel which has a difficulty to coordinate. The EU and myself with my team, we organize once or twice a year coordination activities amongst the main actors among the special envoys in the Sahel. But the big need is a good coordination and that's one of the big challenge, one of the first big challenge that we have to face. And the second one is ownership. We will never succeed if there is not a perception of this country that they own their own destiny and that everything which is done is because that's what they need and not because we need it. Which is difficult because I said at the beginning their security is our security but the big challenge that we have and that's why it's so important to have this interlocution or these talks with them really to know what they need and ourself to adapt ourself to their situation. They need the presence of the state because one of the main problems is the lack of the presence of the state in this country. I will say this sentence also that the vacuum of the state is the oxygen of the terrorism. Yes, they need that but if we give them the means it means that they need not the one that we think they need or at least that they perceive that like that. As well as the security sector or in the development sector in the same way. And that's why the EU maintained this structural partnership because and I will finish with that with this sentence of Federica Mogherini which the idea of ownership that we are not working for Africa and for the Sahel. No, we are working or we must work with Africa and with the Sahel. Thank you very much for your attention.