Attachments
INTRODUCTION
With the international intervention in Mali in 2013, humanitarians once again face the challenge of finding an independent space in which to provide assistance. Here, political, military, and aid initiatives strive for coherence between diverse activities in a complex environment involving the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), France, the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Malian state and non-state actors. Characteristic of these efforts toward a coherent, integrated response to the crisis is the UN effort to develop an “integrated strategy for the Sahel region encompassing security, governance, development, human rights and humanitarian issues,” even as the need for “impartial, neutral, full and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid” is acknowledged.
The Sahel is a vast region to the south of the Sahara Desert that spans parts of Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania. Over the past few years, multiple crises have unfolded in the region, including localized nutritional crises and chronic food insecurity due to persistent poverty coupled with droughts, high food prices, low agricultural production and loss of coping mechanisms. In addition, the current crisis in Mali has led to significant forced displacement. As of January 2013, some 230,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) had fled within Mali and 150,000 refugees had sought shelter in neighboring countries, mainly in Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger.[2]
The Sahel has long been a concern for the EU and EU member states as a result of its close geographical proximity, historical ties, and relevance to an extensive security agenda including responses to illegal arms flows, human trafficking and irregular migration, drug trafficking, terrorism and crime. The direct involvement of the EU and several member states means that the crisis in the Sahel has significant implications for Europe, specifically regarding the EU’s search for coherence.
Along with the Horn of Africa, the Sahel is the first place where the EU and its Member States are implementing a comprehensive approach.[3] The idea of a comprehensive approach is new neither to EU member states nor to other states and institutions such as the UK’s “whole of government” approach, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) “comprehensive approach” or the United Nations’ (UN) ambitions toward “integrated missions” or “one UN.” While the concept is “notorious for being a catch-all phrase for what can turn out to be quite different things,”[4] there are some common denominators, in particular the ideas that security and development are inseparable and that different branches in crisis management should integrate their thinking and action.
For the EU and its member states, the “comprehensive approach” is a key part of recent external action discourse, pointing to the mobilization of the entire range of instruments available to the EU and its member states in crisis management to achieve a more holistic, sustainable response addressing multiple facets of crises in a coherent manner. While the 2009 Lisbon Treaty institutionalized this approach through changes to EU foreign and security policy structures, a joint EU External Action Service (EEAS)/European Commission communication further detailing the EU comprehensive approach is expected in 2013. At the same time, recent EU approaches to two regional crises have been formulated to provide for a EU Comprehensive Approach in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.[5]
Many commentators already see the Sahel crisis as a crucial test of the European Union’s Common Security and Defense Policy.[6] Less discussed but equally significant is how the situation will also test the EU’s commitment to humanitarian principles.