International efforts to eradicate armed groups from the West African region of the Sahel have triggered one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement and food crises, made worse by climate change. 2022 was the deadliest year for civilians on record and 2023 has seen eruptions of violence, massacres of civilians and other breaches of international humanitarian law in Chad, Togo, Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso, whilst the repercussions of the coup in Niger are still being felt.
To shift regional and international policy to a more people-centred and therefore more effective approach, and to support civil society in the region to take its rightful role in policy and peace-making, the People’s Coalition for the Sahel, a ground-breaking coalition of Sahelian civil society, was formed in 2020.
By the end of 2022, the People’s Coalition had become a major player, cited and consulted by policy-makers at national and inter-governmental level, pushing the boundaries of how civil society is heard in the region and beyond.
The Coalition launched the landmark publication ‘The Sahel: What Needs to Change’ in 2021 and in 2022 launched the follow-up report ‘The Sahel: What Has Changed’, evaluating progress towards addressing the crisis. The report's findings were shared through national and international media, and directly with high-level officials from the African Union (AU), United Nations (UN), European Parliament, International Coalition for the Sahel, and national governments.
Peoples Coalition for the Sahel