UNDP: State failure responsible for terrorism in Africa

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NAIROBI, Kenya - The United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] has associated state failure to the rising cases of terrorism in Africa, from the troubled Sahel in West Africa, Mozambique and Somalia within the Horn of Africa region, where instability has been a trend for over three decades now.

Data taken by the global body suggests that Sub Sahara Africa alone accounted for 48 percent of the deaths from violent extremism and 21 percent of the total attacks. A third of those deaths were in just four countries — Somalia, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Between 2011 and 2020 more than 50,000 people died as result of extremist violence on the continent.

“In the absence of the state institution providing for the basic services of, you know, security, rule of law or functioning courts, people essentially turn to these violent extremist groups,” Achim Steiner, administrator of the UNDP, said in an interview. “They provide in whichever form an alternative.”

The collapse of the state services especially in Burkina Faso and Somalia is said to be a threat to the world peace and stability, with terrorism spiking from 2007 to date. The economic situation has also diminished by close to $97 billion according to the UNDP study.

“We are at a point where development is imploding and the conditions that actually drive violent extremism are growing exponentially,” Steiner said. “More and more people are actually, you know, trying to get out of their own country that they call home.”

In addition to migration, both to developed countries and overburdened neighboring states, letting extremist groups flourish could see them export the violence globally, as had happened with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, he said, Bloomberg reports.

According to report by the UNDP, 2,196 people were interviewed in the last two years. Of those, 1,000 were former members of violent extremist groups, some of whom were forcibly recruited and others who joined voluntarily.

Lack of education, isolation and brutality by government forces necessitated the decision by the groups to join violent extremist groups. Those interviewed were former members of Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, the al-Qaeda-affiliated coalition in West Africa.

Already the economic impact of the violence can be seen. Much of northern Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso are inaccessible because of the security threat and TotalEnergies SE has halted a $20 billion natural gas project in Mozambique after an attack by Islamist militants.

“We need to have a much more fundamental reflection on what is working, what is not working,” Steiner said. “These essentially nation state collapses that we are witnessing are ultimately going to have a cancer-like effect on, on not only neighboring countries, but ultimately the global sense of human security.”

GAROWE ONLINE

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