A Conversation With João Cravinho, EU Special Representative for the Sahel Region

From the ongoing spill-over of the conflict in Sudan into Chad to the resurgence of military coups in countries such as Niger and Burkina Faso, and to the democratic election in Senegal, the Sahel region of Africa has remained in the news.

The EU Special Representative for the Sahel Region discusses the forces shaping the region’s sociopolitical and demographic transformation, and the steps taken by the European Union to address these challenges and support long-term regional stability.

OBADARE: It’s so good to see everyone. I thought nobody would show up because of the weather, because it’s so cold. (Laughs.)

OK. I think we can start. Good morning, everyone—no, good afternoon, everyone. (Laughs.) Welcome to today’s meeting. I’m having a conversation with Dr. João Cravinho. Dr. Cravinho is the EU special representative for the Sahel region.

I’m sure pretty much everybody in this room knows me. My name is Ebenezer Obadare. I’m the Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies here at the Council, and I’ll be presiding over today’s discussion.

I’m not going to go into a long introduction of Dr. Cravinho. His biography is in the packet right in front of you. But just make a note that Dr. Cravinho and I share a common institutional affiliation. He did his first and second degrees at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I did my Ph.D. there. So I’m tempted to make this conversation about the London School of Economics, for maybe the next thirty minutes we’ll just talk about LSE. But we’re not going to do that. We have more important things to do.

And quickly, before we start, a reminder that this meeting is on the record.

So, Dr. Cravinho, thanks for accepting our invitation. Welcome to the Council.

And it seems to—there seems to have been no better place to start than the new EU strategic priorities for the Sahel. I wonder if you could tell us what those priorities are and what the institutional thinking behind them is.

CRAVINHO: Well, thank you. Oops.

OBADARE: You’re on.

CRAVINHO: I’m on.

OBADARE: Yes.

CRAVINHO: Well, thank you very much, and thank you for your warm introduction. Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, for being here despite the un-Sahelian—(laughter)—weather that we’re facing outside. And to say also that of course Ebenezer has mentioned our common affiliation to the London School of Economics, but what we really spent our time on was talking about Manchester United—(laughter)—and where there are also some common interests there. So we won’t—we won’t inflict that upon you.

With respect to strategic priorities of the European Union, well, the first strategic priority of the European Union—I should say I’ve been in this post for about a year, and so this past year has to an important degree been dedicated to creating circumstances for the European Union to have strategic priorities. The first circumstance that is necessary for that to happen is for there to be sufficient convergence amongst the twenty-seven member states. And if we go back a year or so, then we’ll see that there was significant divergence amongst the EU member states, and in those circumstances it is simply not possible to project a consistent approach externally.

The past year has—we’ve managed to, I think, develop a good dynamic of convergence. We will never be homogeneous—we have twenty-seven different countries—and that’s true for any issue area, but we do have now a sufficient common basis to allow us to work with the Sahel as EU in a manner that is reasonably consistent.

I would say that one element of the consensus amongst the twenty-seven is very simply no disengagement, which may sound obvious but perhaps it’s not so obvious. If one, again, goes back twelve months, there was some countries saying, you know, we should have nothing to do with these—with these regimes that have taken over the central Sahel because they’re completely in the—antithetical to what we believe in, and so on. But the reality is that the dynamics of the Sahel are just too close to us for us to afford the possibility of disengagement, and that is now a consensus. The idea that we cannot afford—because we have certain interests of our own as EU, we cannot afford to tur our backs upon what is happening in that region. If we do so, then we will have no control over what comes to us from that region.

And what are—what are those interests of ours? There are a number of them, but I think the most obvious evident ones are related to counterterrorism. What we know from the last few decades is that when terrorist organizations manage to establish themselves, territorially anyway, they don’t stay there. And so that, for us in Europe, is a big—a big issue. There is also a number of European governments are extremely focused on the theme of migration, migratory flows. And the root causes of both migration and terrorism, the factor that push towards recruitment of both migration and terrorism, are the same. They are related to the lack of prospects, the lack of opportunities, the lack of possibilities for young people in a demographically very dynamic region for young people to stay where they are.

So what this has led us to do is to develop an approach that says we must engage because we have interests. And our interests lead us to need to engage in three different manners.

In the political/diplomatic engagement. In other words, explaining much better what our interests are, updating the quality of our dialogue, which had really deteriorated over many years. And so explaining better what we’re about; explaining—listening more and better to explanations coming from the Sahel about what the need, the way they are thinking; thus enabling us hopefully to find the intersection, find where our interests and theirs can converged sufficiently for us to be able to operate and to carry out activities that are of common interest.

Secondly, human security. And thirdly, socioeconomic resilience. So both of those, human security because we are not going to engage militarily with military regimes—there’s no consensus for that at all amongst the twenty-seven—but we do have an interest in promoting human security, so security understood more widely. And we have—including involvement of youth and women, which are fundamental parts of those societies. And in terms of promoting socioeconomic resilience, which has to be targeted. It has to be thematically targeted. It has to be geographically targeted in a way that can lessen the conditions for recruitment of terrorist organizations and of—and of migratory flows and so on.

So this is—this is—basically, it’s—I think sounds, I hope, fairly clear, I hope also fairly simple. Not so easy to put into practice, partly because of this constant need that we have to maintain the conversation amongst ourselves, the twenty-seven, make sure everybody’s onboard; partly, of course, also because it is not always easy to speak to the countries of the central Sahel, who have regimes that are—that have different—a different set of values, and that are also very, very sensitive, and in some cases actually also paranoid about external forces and so on.

So that’s where we are at the moment. And 2025 has been about creating these circumstances; 2026 has to be about really putting them into practice.

OBADARE: Thank you so much.

So you mentioned terrorism, and I think that’s an obvious subject to dive into because if—to the extent that the Sahel is in the news right now, it’s because of Islamist terrorism. And I seem to recall that it’s also one of the items on the National Security Strategy of the Trump administration. So I’d ask, in your position and as someone who has traveled extensively across the region, I wonder, one what your general thoughts are on the problem of violent jihadism; and then, two, if you can also go into some detail on what the EU is doing to—especially to help affected states effectively combat violent jihadism.

CRAVINHO: OK. Thank you.

I think that one of the first aspects that is important to underline is that we don’t have a simple situation of radical Islamic extremists versus those who try to make a functional state. It’s not like that; it’s actually much more complicated. And in fact, there is—there are profound linkages between some of these groups—and there are many groups. They’re not—they’re not one single group. Profound linkages between them and organized crime, to the extent that some may be—some groups may be strongly religiously motivated, others not really at all, even though they may both be operating under similar affiliations to al-Qaida, to Islamic State, and so on.

So the reality is actually much more complex. And although it is important to be focused on deradicalization, it is not—recruitment does not happen because young people have very strong religious beliefs. They may develop those beliefs, but actually they’re joining these organizations or these groups because they have lack of prospects and so on. And in the course of that, then afterwards they may become radicalized; or they may not become radicalized at all and simply have a—look at this as a job like any other. And so dealing with the issue of violent extremism is a complicated one because it doesn’t fit the simple ideas that we might have gained from other parts of the world—Middle East, and Afghanistan, and so on.

So what are we actually doing about it? I would say that this conceptualization of a—of a strategy that we have been developing focusing on dialogue, focusing on human security, focusing on socioeconomic resilience is actually the best chance that we have of engaging. The military regimes took over and were actually quite popular for having taken over with the argument that, as military people, they knew how to solve the security problem. And they failed on that front. In all three countries, the situation is—Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger—situation is now worse than it was when they took over. In Mali it’s considerably worse, and in Burkina Faso as well. Niger, a little bit more under control. But what they have now accepted, I believe—although they find it difficult to incorporate this into their actual policies—is that there simply cannot be an exclusively military solution to the nature of the problems, because the problems are actually of a—of a different kind.

In Mali, this is very complicated because the regime set its reputation or it established itself on the ground so that the regime plus their friends the Russians were going to solve everything. And it is very difficult now for them to say, well, you know, let’s try a different approach.

Burkina Faso, they have greater flexibility because they did not throw their—throw their lot in in exactly the same way, but then they also have other problems.

And Niger. Niger, they are more open because they are so—they’re in a sense paradoxical. They have more options because they’re so distrustful of the outside world that they never accepted much external support.

So I think I would say that combating the conditions that have led to terrorism really require us to be focusing on these—on these aspects of the socioeconomic resilience and so on. I would not say at all that the way to do it is through kinetic strikes. With a missile you can kill some—you can kill some leaders, but you do absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing—in terms of solving the problems.

OBADARE: Yeah. I’m going to come back to that and really focus on those three—Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

But you brought up something earlier that I wanted to see if you could just maybe elaborate a little bit upon, and that’s the connection between violent jihadism and organized crime. That connection is little known. Is there something you could say about that just to—

CRAVINHO: Well, you know, a couple of years ago—I mean you followed this closely—and even more recently, there was a kind of consensus amongst analysts that JNIM—so that is the al-Qaida-affiliated organizations—were in Burkina Faso, in Mali, and they were heading to the coast. Their objective was to reach the coast, and they were going to reach the coast and they were going to link up with piracy, they were going to link up with drug running, and the operations that go from South America to Europa via West Africa. And in fact, in the last year we have seen no evidence of them pushing down towards the coast. There have been, yes, in northern Togo, northern Benin there’s been some few. But there has been no push towards the coast.

Why? I think because they’re already there. I think that the linkage that people were concerned about has already happened, and it’s a linkage from the coast to the interior and vice versa. And this is a linkage that is happening through penetration of state—some state sector through influence in ports, influence in other infrastructures that are important. And here now we have a complex that is much more profound than was the case twenty years ago. Twenty years ago we already had a logistical connection between South American drugs and the European market—and the U.S. market, because sometimes they would cross the Atlantic twice—but it was logistical. It was all about getting things—getting drugs from one place to another.

Now it’s actually much more than logistical. It involves, for example, the financing of Hezbollah through certain elements of the Lebanese business communities in West Africa. It goes deeper also to—into the anonymization of the resources. Those who are familiar with South America know that there is a wild, wild west region in the triple border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. And one of the characteristics of that region, which is full of drugs and guns—one of the characteristics is that there is a massive dam building, hydroelectric dam, that is built fifty/fifty by Brazil and Paraguay. It supplies 40 percent of Brazilian energy. And the other 50 percent of the energy goes to Paraguay, which, with its 7 million inhabitants, obviously cannot absorb. So what is the use of a massive overload of energy or massive excess of energy? In this day and age, one of the uses is crypto mining. So we find crypto mining happening in that region linked up to drug production, which is going through to—going to West Africa, reaching European markets, reaching the North American market, and providing ways of laundering the proceeds in a way that is much deeper than the simple—the simple logistics.

So organized crime is an important part, unfortunately, of any area of low governance, lack of governance. And they move in quickly, they identify the opportunities. And that’s one of the realities of this region that we’re dealing with of the Sahel and also to some degree some West African countries that have weak state structures.

OBADARE: Thank you so much.

So, speaking of governance, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso come to mind. We both know what happened in those countries. Soldiers came in promising paradise, and I don’t think we can speak of paradise in regard to those countries at the moment. As a matter of fact, the security situation there has rapidly deteriorated. And I wonder if you can speak generally about the situation in those three countries, focusing specifically on what the EU is trying to do to rapidly turn around the security situation there.

CRAVINHO: Well, I mean, we have—we do also have to be modest, you know. We cannot, as you say, rapidly turn the situation around. This is not within our purview. We can make a contribution, which is also one that has to be calibrated according to country by country, because each reality is different, and calibrated according to the nature of the interaction that we have with those countries. So although, I mean, our concern is first and foremost the impact that this can have on the European populations, we have a vested interest in the stability and the wellbeing of the populations of Sahel and West Africa. But we cannot take that responsibility upon our shoulders. We can simply position ourselves to do the best possible in very difficult circumstances, and sometimes perhaps with facing difficult choices. Usually in this region, the reality that we face is not between a good and a bad choice; it’s between a difficult choice and one that is really bad. So that’s what we have to face up to.

Some Europeans—many Europeans say, well, you know, we don’t share enough in terms of values with these regimes for us to be engaging in a supportive manner. On the other hand, those same Europeans, when faced with the question of what about if the current regimes that you don’t like collapse, allowing for a JNIM takeover, so what should you do in those circumstances? And this is—this is the way that we have to look upon these realities, not as—not as, you know, a blank canvas upon which we could draw a beautiful picture but one in which there are around a hundred million people in the Sahel facing very different—difficult circumstances that we have to be able to—and we have to deal with the powers that exist in that region.

So creating a wider set of opportunities for engagement is what we are currently doing—creating a wider set that corresponds in some ways to the issues that we feel are central to our—to our concerns, which we also feel coincide with the concerns of the populations there, their need for stability and security.

OBADARE: So we can’t talk about the Sahel without talking about climate change. It’s one of the world’s most vulnerable regions in terms of climate change. And as you said, the EU—I know you are no magician, so I get that, but to think about the Sahel is to think about increasing desertification, extreme weather, food shortages. Can you tell us a little bit about what the EU is doing to help affected countries in the Sahel with respect to the program of climate change?

CRAVINHO: Yeah. Thanks.

So, I mean, as everybody knows though some might not admit, climate change affects us all. Climate change affects the whole world. But it affects the Sahel—Sahel is one of the regions that is most affected. I mean, it’s unequal, the impact of climate change. And, yes, you point out some of, I would say, the physical impacts/consequences of climate change. These translate into issues relating to changing dynamics amongst groups of people.

One of the factors that we’ve seen in the last few years is the intensification of ethnic conflicts due to climate change. How does that happen? I mean, Ebenezer, you know the region much better than I do. The traditions of nomadic people who take their livestock across hundreds and hundreds of kilometers on a seasonal basis, and do so in interaction—sometimes intention, but having developed patterns of interaction with sedentary agriculture, farmers, well, with climate change that changes because the farmers’ lands are changing, the routes are changing, and there are new conflicts. And there we have—when I speak of nomadic people, I’m speaking mostly of the Peul, the Fulani, and so you have—who actually also comprise probably about half of the recruits of JNIM. And so there you have an ethnicization of the consequences of climate change and bringing in a whole new dimension.

Again, there are—there are no simple solutions, and we certainly don’t have them. But we are working in—I mean, directly—in a manner directly related to climate change. The Europeans are investing heavily in the creation of the so-called Great Green Wall, in the creation of—on a local level—of ways of combating climate change. But this requires large-scale international coordination and local availability, too. And the local availability is problematic because there are many vested interests at a local level which tend to impose themselves over weak state structures. So it’s a very difficult equation, and it’s another example of how in the Sahel what we have is a convergence of many factors that—each of which needs to be tackled as part of a whole and cannot each on its own be seen as the silver bullet, the solution for the problem.

OBADARE: At the more elemental, more human level, so President Mohamed Bazoum, former president of Niger, still under house arrest. He’s been under house arrest since July of 2023. What’s the EU doing to—is the EU doing anything to help secure his—secure his release? And I think himself and his wife, actually. Yeah.

CRAVINHO: Yeah, both him and his wife.

So, I mean, the situation of President Bazoum is, I would say, an example of dysfunctionality. This simply should not be happening. And we can say, OK, there shouldn’t have been a military coup in the first place, but that is a reality that has taken place. President Bazoum is being held, I would say, quite unnecessarily.

Now, I’ve spoken at a very high level about this in Niger, and I think everybody understands that there cannot be a proper normalization of relations while President Bazoum, who has, you know, strong relations of friendship with a number of European leaders and a number of African leaders as well, while he is in these circumstances. So I’ve been told, well, OK, we can talk about this, but it’s a complicated issue and above all don’t pressure us in public. Fine. But meanwhile, two years have gone by. Two-and-a-half years have gone by. There has to be—there has to be a solution. And I would expect that Niger authorities should understand that part of the problems that they face are related to this—to this question.

With us, amongst the twenty-seven, we managed—and as I mentioned earlier, my big challenge at the outset a year ago was to try to create convergence amongst the twenty-seven. And so when the second anniversary happened in July of ’25, two years after the July ’23 coup, we did have a common statement. This was the first time that the EU twenty-seven had managed to come together over the Sahel in several years, and so it shows the degree to which there is common concern over President Bazoum.

I’m told sometimes, why are you worried about one Nigerien when there are 25 million Nigeriens? No, it’s not quite like that. It’s not quite like that. It’s not that we’re worried about one, it’s just that what’s happening to one is actually also related to the other 25 million. But so just to say that it’s an issue that we do raise, and I think there is an understanding that, you know, this—there has to be a solution to this problem.

OBADARE: I think we have about five minutes. I’ll ask you one more question. It’s a very easy question. (Laughs.)

CRAVINHO: Like everything in the Sahel. (Laughs.)

OBADARE: I think we can talk about climate change, we can talk about coups d’etat, we can talk about a restiveness among young people, but I think I can—with most of Africa, the elephant in the room is transparent governance. And it’s why young people are, you know, becoming very desperate across—not just across the Sahel, but across Africa generally. I’m aware that the EU, you know, supports transparent governance in Africa, and I’m wondering if you could go into a little bit of detail with respect to Sahel about what the EU is doing to help promote transparent governance practices and then to also help Sahelian countries build very strong democratic institutions.

CRAVINHO: Yeah. Well, again, you know, we—

OBADARE: It’s a simple question, obviously.

CRAVINHO: (Laughs.) There’s so much that we can do. I would say that the stepping stone towards transparent government is inclusive government. That has to be—that has to be the first concern. Different parts of the population need to feel that their concerns are taken into consideration and there are some responses to them. And you know, fully transparent governance is something that in Mali they’ve been searching for since the 1960s, and this is—so the problems—we have to be aware the problems of the Sahel did not begin with the military coups. The military coups are symptoms of deeper underlying currents. And transparent government, I would say, is an aspiration that we need several steps to be able to achieve. But inclusiveness is where it has to begin, a regard for the different parts of quite heterogeneous populations and their different concerns.

OBADARE: Thank you, Ambassador.

At this time I would like to invite participants to join our conversation with their questions.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

And another reminder that this meeting is on the record.

Jon.

Q: Thanks very much. Thanks for your remarks.

Just wonder if I can get you to talk a little bit more about where JNIM—

OBADARE: Quick introduction, Jon?

Q: Sorry. I’m Jon Temin. I’m currently at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. I also just published a report from the Holocaust Museum on mass atrocities in the Sahel.

OBADARE: Which I’m going to encourage all of us to read. It’s a great piece.

Q: I appreciate that. And I will say, in fact, that in talking to folks for that several people said unprompted, sir, that you’re doing a very good job in your—in your job, so thank you for that.

But on JNIM, you know, where—what do you think the goal is? You mentioned, you know, probably not going all the way to the coast. I don’t think that was ever really part of the plan. You know, this fuel blockade on Bamako has been pretty effective. They have really ramped up activities in Benin this year. You know, some people will speculate that they are inspired by what’s happened in Syria and the pivot that HTS has made there. Are you seeing—do you think are they sort of happy with what they’ve got and they’ll just keep doing this, or is there a larger goal that you think they have in mind?

CRAVINHO: OK. Thank you very much for that question, but please don’t expect—(laughs)—THE answer to that.

OBADARE: (Laughs.)

CRAVINHO: It’s really what is the goal of JNIM is something that has been keeping us—keeping us all guessing.

And you mentioned Syria. You mentioned HTS. And I think there’s—that’s—there’s substance to that. I think some JNIM leaders may be thinking that there could come a moment where they could take over the country, come a moment where they could put on a suit and tie and be received in the great buildings of state of Europe.

But there’s another Syrian example which is also, I think, in the forefront of many people’s minds, which is the earlier example of the caliphate—the establishment of the caliphate in Syria, which made—which became a target. And so there is, I think, hesitation as to, yes, there’s one good example and there’s one bad example, and it’s not obviously how they can—how they can end up as one rather than the other.

I think that also JNIM are making a lot of money—a lot of money at the moment. There was recent reports of a $50 million ransom paid for two abducted Emirati citizens. There was—there is a lot of money being made by extortion, extorting drivers along routes and so on. And that’s quite comfortable.

But the thing is, that’s not stable. So you can get a lot of money, and then you need to distribute that money. You need to buy—and you buy arms, and you increase your recruitment, and there comes a point where with all these extra arms and all this extra recruitment then you also need to do something more.

I don’t think that JNIM—I think JNIM recognizes that it does not have the capacity to run Mali or Burkina Faso. You know, one thing is to—is to control a road and get money out of all the drivers kind of going along the road, and another thing is to run the electricity of a country or whatever. And they don’t have that capacity. And therefore one think-tanker from the region said to me, you know, this is all lost; our only solution is to allow them to take over and show how incompetent they are, and then the people will go against them. I don’t think—I don’t think that’s the case. I think that they realize that they don’t have the competence and don’t want to.

On the other hand, because of the constant strangulation that they are imposing upon the—they may—they’re not also in control of the dynamics. The dynamics might lead them to take over.

So there are no good—there are no good answers. My sense is that they don’t have a clear idea. They do—they have stated that they aim to overthrow the regimes, the military regimes in the three AES countries, but exactly how, and with what purpose, and what would come afterwards I don’t think that they know any more than we do. So that’s my sense at the moment, no clear endgame.

OBADARE: Thank you, Ambassador.

Mr. Weiss?

Q: Hi. I’m Andrew—I hope this is working. In any event, I’m Andrew Weiss. I’m vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you, Minister Cravinho. And thank you, Ebenezer, for hosting us.

I have a niche question for you, which is: In your remarks, you only glancingly referred to Russia’s role. And I’m struck by the change between how aggressive the European Union was in the 2020-21 timeframe dealing with the Wagner Group and now sort of acting as if this is just part of the landscape, at least by implication from your remarks. Is that the wrong perception? Thanks so much.

CRAVINHO: I think Russia has a major negative role to play. Russia is—the Russian interest is to have leverage over a region that it knows is sensitive for the European Union. It’s a region where difficult dynamics, complex dynamics can be weaponized against—I say European Union because I’m EUSR, but from a Russian—from a Kremlin perspective what they’re thinking of is the soft underbelly of NATO. And to gain a strong position in that region is desirable. And by the way, one of the things that I’m concerned about is that if there is peace of some sort in Ukraine—and everybody hopes that there will be peace of some sort in Ukraine, a positive sort anyway—then there may well be—we may well see a significant transfer of resources, equipment, and men down to—down to the Sahel because Russia—whatever happens in Ukraine, Russia will still be focused on creating—destabilizing Europe. So Russia is a major concern.

However, having said that, my view is—like the instance that I was citing earlier in another context, my view is that we can just let the Russians show their incompetence. Since they were—have been invited by the Malian government to come in to help them solve the security problem, security problem has got worse. And clearly, the Russians—why? Because the problem is—has a very multivarious nature. Russians only have one instrument—actually, they have two instruments. They have brute force and they have disinformation. These are the two instruments the Russians have, and these instruments are not going to solve the problems of the—of the Sahel.

And so I would say that from the European Union perspective, we do, as we are told to do, respect sovereign choices. We respect sovereign choices. But we are very clear-minded about the consequences of these choices, why they’re there, so we’re paying close attention. But we’re also not going to go head to head with the Russians because we think that they’re showing their limitations, and we are much better off showing our qualities than focusing on combating Russia with its limitations.

OBADARE: Thank you.

Dr. Warner?

Q: Hi. Lesley Warner.

Just going back to what you briefed on on your three points earlier, I guess my question is, is the focus on human security new to the EU or is it something that the EU has historically had as an approach to its foreign relations? The reason that I ask is that in the U.S. we are not particularly good at understanding the human security to state security nexus, and I just—I agree with that approach; I just think that our system isn’t necessarily good at that.

And I guess another question is, is this approach unique to Africa or does the EU tend to approach other parts of the world with this sort of framing?

And then a related question is—(laughter)—

OBADARE: Go on.

Q: —how does—you’ll see how it all fits in eventually.

OBADARE: (Laughs.)

Q: I personally view security assistance and security cooperation as necessary but not sufficient to address broader instability. Where does that fit in with your three-pronged approach? And I’m talking about, like, not EUCAP, but something else. And it is what you do in terms of security assistance or security cooperation, or the lack thereof, is that designed to be complementary to what other actors are doing in the region, or is it something kind of on its own?

CRAVINHO: OK. Thank you. Again, I mean, will be happy to spend the rest of the afternoon here—(laughter)—talking about that.

But I would say very—in a very telegraphic manner the following. The central concern from our Sahelian interlocutors is security. This is what the authorities are concerned about. This is what to a large degree populations are concerned about as well. They’re concerned about many things, their livelihoods and so on, but security is a major concern.

Now, part of our consensus amongst the EU is that we’re not going to engage, as I mentioned, militarily. We’re not going to engage. That means that if we’re going to engage with their number-one concern, it has to be through an approach that is not the military approach. And human security fits that; in other words, an approach that is also related to, you know, people’s simple access to health and to—and also the civilian dimensions of security, namely policing. And we do police training through EUCAP, which allows us also to talk about—talk about human rights issues. We do training with—related to—or creation of conditions for judges to do their job in Mali and Burkina Faso. And that doesn’t mean that they—that these countries have an ideal definition of rule of law, but at least for petty criminality it means that we’re creating better conditions for them to operate and so on.

So I would say that we operate in that area because we cannot operate across the whole gamut of security considerations. And yes, we do have a tradition. We do have an EU tradition of working in human security, which, I mean, we’ve had from the Balkans to—but usually coupled, as well, with a military dimension that we can’t have in this case.

I mean, your question—I can’t really address your deeper question about how to—I mean, we’d half-spend the rest of the afternoon here on—(laughs)—the issue of, you know how this can work in terms of tackling or engaging with regions of deep structural vulnerability or fragilities and so on. But it’s, in my view, a fundamental element of the equation. When I said earlier that, you know, one of the—the problems that the Russian have is that they only have two instruments, actually, this goes to—this is a fundamental part of our range of instruments that we have to able to operate. It’s not easy, because in order to do so you also need to, obviously, establish modus vivendi or an understanding with the authorities in place, and that’s a lot of—a lot of work involved with it. It involves, for example, things like humanitarian access, which, again, is something that needs a lot of talking through in order to show that by providing humanitarian support to populations that may not support the government you’re not actually supporting terrorists and so on.

So it’s a very complex range of issue areas, but it’s one that we can’t afford not to be looking at.

OBADARE: Thank you.

Witney.

Q: Great. Thank you, Ebenezer. And thank you, Ambassador, for being here. I’m Witney Schneidman. I’m a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.

And just a couple follow-up questions. One, what about the U.S.? Is there a partnership there—shared objectives, shared work going on?

Secondly, I’m interested in the role of China. They’re so dominant in trade and investment infrastructure. Are they playing a security role?

And just to build on Lesley’s questions, you mentioned socioeconomic resilience and supporting judges. Please, is this happening on a government-to-government basis or NGOs? How do you actually impact and, frankly, measure, given that, you know, these are extremely difficult environments to work in?

CRAVINHO: OK. Thanks.

Well, what about the U.S. and China? Well, what about the U.S. is part of the reason why I’m here; I’m trying to find out. Like everybody, I read the National Security Strategy. Sahel is not present, and it really not for me to explain the U.S. position, especially not in Washington. But I would say that the meetings that I’ve had so far have given me a clear indication that the U.S. does not see the Sahel as a priority. It largely shares the descriptions and—that I’ve made of our understanding and of our approach have been met with sympathy in the sense that, yes, they agree, but it’s for us, not for the U.S. U.S., again, National Security Strategy, but also in practice has a specific concern with respect to terrorism, but does not feel that there is a terrorist threat coming from—threat to the U.S. or to U.S. interests, except for some specific cases. At the moment there is a U.S. citizen that has been—has been abducted in Niger and so on.

So I would say that the U.S. approach is—has been—towards us has been go for it; it’s—you know, it’s an issue that you should be concerned with. With respect to—and I say that with reservation because I still have some other meetings to attend to, but that’s the impression so far.

With respect to China, China, number one, two, three the objective is resource extraction, going to the region to get the resources they would like. It’s different from Russia. It’s completely different. Russia is looking at leverage over the soft underbelly of NATO. Instability, that’s a good ingredient as far as Russia is concerned. China was—China needs stability. In order for its resource extraction, instability is not a good thing. So actually here and there, I mean, without having any illusions about what China’s interests are, we may find common cause with the Chinese on specific points.

So it’s—I have to say I have not engaged with the Chinese. They have shown interest in speaking with us at a local level in the countries, but we don’t—we don’t exactly sit down and compare notes and work on how we’re going to do things together. But it’s a different kind of actor from Russia.

With respect to engaging in the countries, so we need to engage with—we need to have a dialogue with the authorities who are in power. We also need for the sake of fiduciary responsibilities of our own to have structures whereby our resources are invested in manners that are accountable to us. So, for example, working through NGOs can provide us with the—with the appropriate structures.

But increasingly, it has been made clear that that cannot happen without the authorities knowing what is going on and without them—well, they need to feel that resources are not being channeled against them. So this is part of the—of the dialogue, being able to work in complicated situations in which the state structures are ones that offer a certain amount of difficulties from the European perspective for us to be able to interact with, and on the other hand to be able to explain that alternative arrangements that we’re making are not—are not meant to undermine the government.

By the way, this is a wider problem than just in the Sahel. There is a generalized sense across the African continent that Europeans or Westerners have undermined the state in many countries by focusing too much of—channeling too much—too many resources through nonstate structures.

Q: Thank you.

Q: It’s already on.

Q: It’s on?

Q: Thank you very much for this session. First I want to congratulate you, Ambassador—yeah, Ted Voorhees here—Ambassador, for your strong efforts to be as positive as you possibly can in an incredibly difficult, problematic subject. You’re doing a good job on sounding positive.

But what you’ve—the picture you’ve painted accurately, I think, is of a(n) extremely problematic situation in almost every dimension. And what I’m hearing you saying is, look, we, EU, can’t do any big things; all we can do is some small things, and so we’re going to be doing those small things. If that’s more or less—it may be unfair—but if that’s more or less what you’re saying, could you give us any model for a similar situation where an outside force trying to do small things has ever succeeded in getting any progress? I mean, do you have some lodestar that you’re looking at and saying, OK, we’re going to try and do this the way we did it successfully or someone did it successfully in the past?

CRAVINHO: Thanks.

Well, firstly, I mean, no, we’re not modeling ourselves on any—it’s actually an interesting question because it’s one that’s never addressed to myself: Is there any other circumstance that is—that can offer us guidance historically?

What I would say, you talk about doing small things. I would put it in a different way, which is that we’re doing what is possible with the recognition of the consciousness that we’re working on a long time horizon. We’re not—there is no way that the issues that have been developing over decades can be met in, say, twelve or twenty-four months. They require a sustained, systematic effort—sustained and systematic, but that needs to be calibrated and adjusted all the time—over a long time.

Now, you know, we’re not going anywhere geographically. Europe and the Sahel are going to continue to be more or less adjacent regions, with just the Maghreb between us. And that means that, you know, we simply have no alternative but to—but to insist.

And I think that there is a degree of urgency which comes and goes, and it comes and goes with respect to the intensity of the terrorism challenge and the migratory flows. You know, when both of these become very intense, sense of urgency becomes greater, the level of investment becomes also greater. But we have not had, especially with the situation in Ukraine, situation in the Middle East, political—spotlights on political energy dedicated to the Sahel.

I would say in 2025 that’s not been a bad thing because it has allowed us to put our house in order, and it has allowed us to focus on the medium term and the longer term rather than responding to immediate emergencies. But we do need in 2026 a bit more political attention.

The Sahel has been absent from—I mean, we were talking about climate change and its focus on the Sahel. There were hundreds, literally, of side events at the recent Belem Conference of the Parties on climate change; zero—zero—dedicated to the Sahel. The last two U.N. General Assemblies, again, always have dozens and dozens and dozens of side events; nothing on the Sahel, practically. So this is absent from the world’s radars even though there’s a generalized recognition there is a massive problem here.

Our approach, yes, it has no big sledgehammer. It has no magic wands, no silver bullets. But it is the one that is possible with a view to over a longer period of time, years ahead, engaging in a way that can make a difference.

And I think that part of the key to this is actually convincing everybody in the region that—including, of course, in the Sahelian states that what we are proposing is what makes most sense for them. I’ve been gratified to see that in the past couple of months, as we come together as European Union, we’re also finding a number of others who equally, you know, are perplexed by the—by the situation, the so-called likeminded like U.K., and Norway, and Switzerland, and Canada, as well as the whole of the U.N. system coming around saying, yeah, we need to be working together and this is—this is the right direction; this is what we need to be doing together. So our resources are limited, but everybody coming together the similar—in a similar manner and, as I say, with the U.S. aligned without being invested in it, I think that it’s the only way possible.

You say that—you congratulate me for being optimistic. I don’t see any other alternative. I think this is the way we have to go.

OBADARE: Not to defend the EU—maybe I should—(laughs)—

CRAVINHO: Feel free.

OBADARE: Also to sort of—let me add maybe a couple of sentences to this, which is to say that I think this is also partly acknowledging reality on the ground, which is in the immediate      aftermath of the eviction notice to France, to the United States, and just general disenchantment with sometimes the tone, sometimes the reality of foreign interests in the region, it would seem to be the time not to—to have some institutional humility. And it seems to me that in part that is what the EU seems to be—to be doing. Which is not to deny what you are saying, that there is a big mess on the ground that we all need to worry about.

We have a couple of minutes. Let me start to port, just give you one final question and bring this back home to Washington. So you’ve read the National Security Strategy, and I have too. And the first sentence is about—it’s a reaffirmation of Washington’s dedication to transitioning from foreign assistance to trade, and I think across Africa everybody is applauding that. But there’s also something there about disavower of liberal ideology, and you can’t but see the contradiction between, you know, trying to trade with African countries but at the same time saying I’m not going to care whether you organize elections or not, I’m not going to comment on elections. The very idea of the world’s model for liberal democracy disavowing liberal ideology sort of stares you in the face. And I’m wondering if this is something you’ve thought about and something that you’re hoping to bring up in the conversations you’re having in Washington.

CRAVINHO: Yeah. Well, you know, I’m not here to proselytize, but—which I am not sure would be very successful if I were. But I think that, you know, ultimately, unless you conceive of interactions as being exclusively one-off business deals one after another, if you want to have properly functioning economic interaction with other parts of the world then you need to have—you need to have rule of law. You need to have a certain place, a number of structures that are well-known. And ultimately, that will, I think, become very clear. So you can have a one-off business deal by getting a concession to a mine or something, but that is hardly going to be the kind of interaction that I think is interesting for the U.S. on a—on a long-term basis.

So, yes, I completely agree that we as Europeans are focused on the notion of rule of law as being essential to incentivize investment. And when I go to Africa, I don’t hear them saying we need more foreign aid; I hear them saying we need more investment. But you know, to get investment there are a number of conditions that need to be established unless you want the wrong kind of investment. So, yes, ultimately, I completely agree that there are deeper conditions that need to be put—help to—help to establish in order for there to be a more satisfactory long-term relationship.

By the way, just one word because I’m conscious that we’re close to our time limit. Just a sentence to say that we haven’t mentioned, but it is important, African Union, ECOWAS, African institutions that also have a role to play.

OBADARE: Thank you, sir. Thank you for joining today’s meeting and thank you to our speaker. Really appreciate it. Thank you. (Applause.)

CRAVINHO: Thank you. Thank you all for helping me to think through some of the challenges. (Laughs.)

OBADARE: Yeah. Thank you.

CRAVINHO: Thank you.

OBADARE: Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.