The recent joint offensives by JNIM-FLA offensives in Mali have drawn attention to shifting conflict dynamics in the Sahel, but they also raise a broader question about whether growing state involvement in local conflicts is becoming an increasingly important driver of how wars evolve, persist, and spread across Africa. This is the third article in a series about the nature of evolving conflict dynamics in West Africa, and state responses, by Toyosi Ajibade.

In an earlier piece, we argued that criminal networks can become enabling infrastructure for insurgent expansion. Recent developments in Mali suggest this logic may extend even further, as tactical cooperation between the al-Qaeda aligned group known as JNIM and the Tuareg separatist group, the FLA, raises questions about whether convergence itself is becoming an increasingly attractive strategy for armed groups across the Sahel, and what this could mean for future counterterrorism and stabilization efforts.

Drawing on over a decade of policy experience, former USCIRF analyst Madeline Vellturo breaks down the critical misconceptions that are hamstringing the U.S. response to religious freedom and mass violence in Nigeria. This first installment of a new series of essays about religious freedom and U.S. policy in this space, challenges regional experts to rethink their assumptions about international human rights frameworks in order to better protect vulnerable civilian populations.

In our second blog piece on Nigeria’s conflict environment and the U.S. increasing security position to address it, we look more deeply at banditry in Nigeria, which is no longer just crime. This piece attempts to understand how banditry is evolving into the logistical infrastructure that could enable the next phase of jihadist expansion across West Africa.

The Christmas-Day airstrikes in Nigeria mark a significant military escalation in West Africa against a target that we’re still trying to understand.

Guinea is home to a tremendous amount of raw critical minerals. But the operating environment has historically made companies shy away. Things are changing quickly though, and understanding this space is critical to doing business.

With development and humanitarian aid shrinking, everyone in West Africa - beneficiaries of aid, governments and commercial actors - will feel the impacts on security and sustainability.

Emerging and Frontier markets do not operate in a vacuum - their survival, capacity to thrive, and more importantly their connectivity to global markets is deeply connected to smaller market activity. Dismissing the security, politics and economics of these far flung markets and traders can have downstream effects on broader market activity.