Is German Sahel Policy at a Crossroads?
A strategic reorientation of German foreign and development policy is overdue. But supporting actors “distant from the government” in countries where a coup d’etat took place does not automatically constitute “decolonization” in the sense of increased autonomy.
Currently, in the summer of 2024, German state actors and commentators agree that Sahel policy, or at least development policy, is at a "crossroads". The military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have changed the business model, and normal intergovernmental development cooperation (DC) no longer works. The truth is: foreign and development policy had reached this turning point long ago. Faced with terrorist threats, the collapse of the state had reached an extent that would have required a strategic reorientation long before the coups d'état, as the Sahel Committee of the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD) has been urging since the beginning of 2020 – namely a reversal of the actor perspective.
This is why interministerial disputes in Berlin about how much official recognition should be given to military regimes are of secondary importance. Of course, a modus vivendi must be found with these regimes if we want to continue cooperation in the region – which almost everyone agrees on. The problem lies deeper.
Fokus Sahel, the association of German NGOs active in the region, of which Welthungerhilfe also is a member, held a symposium in Berlin in July which, with the participation of a large number of participants from the region, was dedicated to the topic of "decolonization" of development cooperation in the Sahel – coupled with its twin concept, so-called "localization", in the sense of engaging with local conditions. Misereor, for example, has been conducting an internal discussion process on the decolonization of aid for years.
The issue is multi-layered. On the one hand, for years there has been a global debate about the Localization of Aid and its modalities – against the background of the critical assessment that development cooperation processes and priorities are still defined in the global North or West. The “Economist”, of all publications, succinctly summarized this debate last year. As aptly stated there, the move towards Localization is also a swing of the pendulum away from the previous trend of ensuring control over development projects through ever stricter evaluation. In a nutshell, this is about (finding a way of) letting go. Understood in this way, decolonization of aid is not a radical left-wing concept, just as little as decolonization of international economic relations, but a political aspiration with a concrete practical core. In practice, DC-reform in this sense has not progressed very far.
On the other hand, the special situation in the Sahel – and above all the resounding failure of the engagement of the dominant power France, seen as “post-colonial” – requires specific efforts to fundamentally reorganize cooperation – in other words, to "decolonize". First and foremost, this concerns the relationship to the state or to what is left of state structures, particularly in rural areas. Support for a "return of the state" of whatever kind is far too imprecise or even counterproductive. There is enough empirical evidence that rural populations do not desire a return of this form of a post-colonial state at all, but rather a different one that is closer to the people. Programs to strengthen local governance must take this into account.
For decades, the promotion of decentralization was a flagship of German technical cooperation in Burkina Faso and Mali, with ingenious approaches and fantastic local leaders such as Antoine Sawadogo (Burkina) or Ousmane Sy (Mali). It is part of the great tragedy in the Sahel that these approaches have always been sabotaged by former civilian governments as soon as they would have amounted to real, local autonomy in finance and personnel and thus escaped centralist control along the lines of the 5th French Republic. After all, this was the inspiration at the foundation of these West African states. A relaunch of the promotion of decentralization should avoid support for the return of the old, unitary central state, which in itself is opposed to multi-ethnic societies.
The needs articulated by local non-state actors should also be given priority at sector level, even if "we" do not necessarily like them. In the huge swathes of territory affected by Islamist terror, they must be able to decide autonomously with which armed groups negotiations are possible. Local peace talks cannot be regarded as a political cure-all, but they are the most promising way of restoring social cohesion. This implies: Even if this would run counter to the ban on dialog with Islamists that continues to be imposed by Paris, and which the military regimes paradoxically continue to uphold.
"Distant From the Government" is Far Away from Localization
As the collapse of the state in the Sahel is fairly obvious, German political actors, in particular the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), have adopted the demand to focus more on actors “distant from government”. This sounds good and obviously points in the right direction, but on closer inspection it is just more of the same and still a long way from real "localization". Autonomy of objectives and practices on the ground, underpinned by autonomy in the use of funds and the deployment of personnel (as demanded in the global debate), is still a long way off. Funds are always allocated via governmental or non-governmental donor institutions that are present in the region and retain control over the funds. At all levels, allocation procedures are those of donors. It is a sham to label organizations such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) or the World Food Programme (WFP) as "local partners".
As far as we know, local "open funds" have not yet been offered to anyone in the Sahel. Open funds are naturally at risk of corruption, but as a form of Unconditional Cash Transfers – but at a group level – they are not fundamentally more at risk than this widespread form of cash aid to families.
At best, the BMZ admits, or rather postulates, that German budgetary law stands in the way of more far-reaching autonomous solutions. This is an astonishing statement in view of the billions in international bilateral and multilateral aid that have been allocated to dubious or even untraceable purposes. Budgetary law is being posited here as some sort of higher authority that is difficult to oppose. It is similar to the GGO – the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Government – about which the author was told with a knowing wink during his inaugural visit to the BMZ in 1985 that it stood in the way of strict interministerial policy coordination – relevant today, for example, to Africa or specifically to Sahel policy.
Conspicuous Restraint
African organizations and intellectuals, however, are not bound by such limits to their thinking. Thus, a Fokus Sahel Conference in Berlin in June by civil society groups could have been the platform to rigorously demand the decolonization of Sahel policy. In fact, it provided a wealth of ideas in specialist areas, particularly in agriculture in the Sahel, where rain-fed agriculture is facing an existential crisis visible to all. Given the circumstances, it is quite understandable that participants from the region, many of whom joined the conference from their capitals Bamako, Niamey, Ouagadougou and N'Djamena, were mostly reserved in their criticism of their own military governments. There was, however, an inkling of a controversy as to how much political credit should be given to the military regime in Mali in particular.
But this amicable restraint should not have applied to the German or Western side. If the final discussion is anything to go by, then for the German NGOs there was a veritable elephant in the room, quite a bit larger than the very few that still roam the Sahel. The exquisite politeness of the participants who had traveled here demanded that they repeat the mantra of Germany’s immaculate reputation and reliability. That may be understandable. But the fact that the supposed turnaround in Sahel policy has by no means led to a radical adjustment to local realities at great distance from the state – and that the goal of decolonization is therefore faltering – was not criticized clearly enough. The factual imbalance in that frequently invoked partnership "at eye level" was not subject to debate.
The relationship to France is a particularly useful benchmark for the turnaround in German Sahel policy. France has massively lost credit and trust in the Sahel due to the arrogance of its military and civilian activities in the region. Continuing to bow to the insistent but discreet demands from Paris, especially with regard to the sanctioning of military regimes, is the opposite to turning away from the post-colonial modus operandi. That is a common perception in the region. In the light of all the unnecessary differences of opinion in Franco-German relations at other levels, it is hard to believe that Berlin and Paris are still completely in agreement when it comes to West Africa policy.
Localization Possible in Crisis Contexts
And finally: It has become common knowledge that even a decidedly value-oriented foreign and development policy can be perceived as post-colonial in the global South if it comes with conditions attached and lays high-brow claims to the Universal Values of the Enlightenment (ref. Bonschab/Kappel blog "Nach den Etatkürzungen”). However, programmatic compatibility with localization is entirely possible even in crisis contexts. Just one example: Dialogue processes led by local initiatives, including women's groups, to restore peace between communities can be particularly successful and, in the end, often fail only because political heavyweights assert their power from the capital, as shown over the years in eastern Congo. (1) For a value-oriented policy interested in gender sovereignty, this should be reason enough to support such processes rather than others. That would mean that the German emphasis on values would be implemented according to local priorities, and not the other way around.
A conference organized by the BMZ in mid-July for donor states that are members of the Sahel Alliance apparently brought little improvement. There is reason to doubt whether the priorities set there correspond to the demands of increased localization – be it a centralised education program by the World Bank, which aims to respond to the 11,000 schools closed in the region; or the multi-donor project Sahel Resilience Partnership, even though it is supposed to integrate local cultural techniques that were presented at the Sahel Conference of civil society groups. Certainly, questions are justified in a situation where conventional development cooperation is no longer possible.
Generally speaking, the Sahel Alliance is hardly a body that "coordinates" development cooperation, as has been repeatedly claimed in press reports and statements – at least not in the conventional sense of a coordinated division of labor – who does what when and where. However, the involvement of national and local civil society and decentralized authorities by the German Presidency is an important step. Despite all differences, more than 40 representatives from five countries showed at the conference in Berlin that they are serious partners ready to participate and that they derive legitimacy from their work for the rural population in the face of the climate crisis, insecurity and conflicts between communities and generations.
The future will show whether donors – forced by the difficult situation – are ready and willing to turn cooperation on its head. It would be a huge step forward if, in the wake of the General Assembly and against established donor interests, a political consensus on the primacy of local action and the need for autonomous local peace dialogues could be brought closer.
Footnote
(1) Life and Peace Institute:Collaborative Learning from the Bottom-up:Identifying Lessons from a Decade of Peacebuilding in North and South Kivu through Bottom-up Evaluation (2009-2019) https://assets.ctfassets.net/jzxyrkiixcim/3M7VArysEEDnDhuLUkxn42/dd2370d5fea91fecd5a9a9021d428937/Evaluation_Report_DRC.pdf. Pole Institute: www.pole-institute.org
