And Then Things Got Complicated: Addressing the Security-Climate-Migration Nexus in the Sahel

This report examines nexus challenges in the Sahel and subsequent opportunities for multilateral policymaking.

As one of the regions in the world facing a combination of security, governance, developmental, and environmental challenges, the Sahel has been a magnet of international attention in the recent past.


These challenges overlap and intersect in complex ways, while often going beyond the borders of a single state or the limits of the region as a whole (see the example of human mobility, transnational terrorism, or climate change).


Despite such growing interest from a diverse range of actors, policy responses and multilateral collaboration struggle in matching the complexity of the challenges unfolding in the Sahel and spilling over to other parts of the world. For multilateral responses to do better justice to the complexity of these multidimensional, interconnected, and transnational challenges, nexus thinking needs to be incorporated into every aspect of policymaking.

Margherita Bianchi
Asli Selin Okyay
Francesco Iacoella Luca Barana