Togo Postpones Counterterrorism Summit
Togo’s conference on terrorism and political transition in the Sahel and West Africa has been postponed from today to an undisclosed date.
In a statement issued by the Togolese Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Monday, the deferred UN-backed conference will encourage participants to reflect on strategies for strengthening the state and containing the spread of Sahel terrorism into West Africa.
The event would have been timely following last week’s militant attack in Northern Benin, Togo’s neighbor. Moreover, political instability continues to plague the region after an onslaught of coup d’états, including in Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Sudan, and Guinea, over the past 18 months. The postponement of the conference indicates a lack of political will to coordinate regional security efforts in West Africa, especially as countries are primarily concerned with domestic instability, ranging from electoral violence to terrorism.
To date, such regional efforts have been lacking in results and fail to address the root causes of West African insecurity. Should the Togolese conference on counterterrorism occur, expect state and international actors to present innovative strategies that supersede previous stabilization strategies such as sanctions or military operations.
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