Under the theme «Current security challenges in Africa: for integrated solutions», this forum will bring together, from November 13 to 14, security experts and academics, military, diplomats who will reflect on the global and «integrated solutions» to security challenges which the continent is facing. Present at the opening ceremony, the Malian President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, called not to be afraid of terrorism.
During two days, Dakar, the Senegalese capital, will host the 4th edition of the International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa to which approximately 700 people (experts, diplomats and soldiers) will take part. This important meeting on security issues was initiated in December 2013 by the Elysée summit. Senegal is organizing the event with the technical support of the European Strategic Intelligence Company (CEIS).
«Degradation of security conditions»
At the opening ceremony, yesterday, Monday, November 13, three Heads of State were present: the Malian, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, current president of the G5 Sahel, Paul Kagame, future president of the African Union, and the president of Senegal, Macky Sall. The current President of ECOWAS, Faure Gnassingbé, who is facing the storm of a popular protest in Togo, did not make the trip. At the Abdou Diouf International Conference Center in Diamniadio (CICAD), some absences did not go unnoticed. The challenge of the Forum is to achieve joint management of security challenges. «Terrorism puts into play our shared destiny, hence the need for all African States to unite but also to form strategic partnerships between the United Nations and the African Union to combat this scourge», said Albert Pahimi, Prime Minister of Chad.
The #Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security begins today, on the theme “Security Challenges in #Africa: for integrated solutions” https://t.co/StbnPMtW2k #DakarForum pic.twitter.com/IWwHLFYsJm
— Présidence Sénégal (@PR_Senegal) 13 novembre 2017
It remains anyway that the absence of the other Heads of State of G5 Sahel, Horn of Africa and Lake Chad basin countries has led many observers to judge the usefulness of this questionable event. Especially since the first edition, in 2014, security conditions on the continent have hardly improved. On the contrary, they are deteriorating.
«We will not be afraid»
It is in his capacity as the president of Mali and the current president of the G5 Sahel that Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta went to Dakar. While the G5 launched its first operations within the boundaries of the three Liptako Gourma countries (Mali, Burkina, Niger), considered as the central spindle and the epicenter of the crisis in the Sahel. In this region inter-community conflicts, organized crime and activities of armed terrorist groups are entangled. Even more worrying, the Sahel faces a reshuffle of the terrorist galaxy with, in particular, the creation of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, led by the Touareg Iyad Ag Ghaly, in a context of competition between AQIM and the Islamic State group. The latter, hard-pressed in Libya, is turning more and more towards the Sahel where there are allies that are the Islamic State group in West Africa, Boko Haram faction led by Abu Mossab al-Barnaoui and the Islamic State group in the Great Sahara carried by Abu Walid Al-Saharawi.
In Mali, the military as well as civilians continue to die in the north and center in the attacks of armed terrorist groups. In Dakar, President IBK emphasized the country’s resilience: «Do not give in to fear. We will not be afraid».
Sahelien.com