What Future for the Western Sahel? - The region’s demography and its implications by 2045

High levels of organized the Marxist-inspired insurgencies that ignited across resistance—such as the large demonstrations by Islamic Southeast Asia and Latin America during the second organizations in Mali, in 2009, that turned back wom- half of the twentieth century, the jihadist presence in en’s rights—have convinced some development pro- the rural portions of the Western Sahel restricts the fe. [...] In a more-populous Western Sahel, the future of agricultural and pastoral liveli- hoods will depend on the development of ground- water irrigation and intensified agropastoralism (a 15 WHAT FUTURE FOR THE WESTERN SAHEL? INTRODUCTION The Western Sahel, the vast swath of arid land A review of the available research suggests that in sub-Saharan Africa that stretches from the absent urgent, well-funde. [...] In contrast, those in the Western Sahel; and third, a worst-case scenario the Western Sahel remain in the early stages of their (“Downward Spiral”) combining persistently high fer- eventual transition to a lower total fertility rate (an tility rates and the continued marginalization of young estimate of the average lifetime number of children people and women, with Western disengagement and born p. [...] which access remained limited until the invention, in Having achieved independence from France or, in the fifteenth century, of the caravel, a lateen-rigged the case of Nigeria, from the United Kingdom in 1960, ship capable of sailing against the trade winds that the states of the region have since been governed by a permanently blow east-to-west along the continent’s varied array of political reg. [...] In parallel, the reputations of the most belea- of Nigeria’s total population.13 Each of the Sahelian guered regimes in the Western Sahel have been stained states, as well as northern Nigeria, continue to expe- by frequent allegations of abuses of power, corruption, rience rapid rates of population growth and retain an and civilian deaths at the hands of security forces and extremely youthful age.