G5 Sahel: operational session on the sidelines of the General Assembly
The Sahel Alliance and the G5 Sahel have formed a solid partnership, with regular contacts with both the rotating G5 Presidency and the G5 Sahel Executive Secretariat. On July 11, on the sidelines of the Sahel Alliance General Assembly in Nouakchott, representatives of the G5 Sahel Executive Secretariat and Alliance members met to discuss the G5 Sahel’s new strategic and programmatic framework. The focus was on support for the G5 Sahel’s development objectives.
The aim of this operational session was to present the new priorities and intervention approach proposed in the new Development and Security Strategy (SDS) and the Priority Investment Program (PIP). Furthermore, the aim was to discuss how the members of the Sahel Alliance can align themselves with the new strategic and programmatic framework of the G5 Sahel and support achieving its development objectives.
The session began with a presentation of the PDU’s achievements, highlighting the difficulties encountered and good practices.
The PDU is a program consisting of particularly urgent structuring projects extracted from the PIP and focusing on:
- hydraulics
- resilience of agricultural and pastoral populations
- conflict prevention
For the PDU, the amounts mobilised now total nearly €553 million, an increase of 108% on the initial budget. Today, 20 national projects and 10 multi-country projects are underway, and 7 projects have been completed. 327 million has been disbursed, with an overall disbursement rate of 59% and an annual disbursement rate in 2022 of 39%, demonstrating a higher implementation capacity than what was generally observed for projects financed in G5 Sahel countries.
An Effective Partnership From the Outset of the Alliance
The G5 Sahel and the Alliance have been associated for 5 years by a partnership protocol. In October 2018, in Niamey, the G5 Sahel Executive Secretariat and the Sahel Alliance Coordination Unit (UCA) signed this protocol. It sets out the framework for collaboration and the operational procedures for implementing programs and projects in the G5 Sahel region.
The PIP G5 Sahel Donors’ Conference on December 6, 2018, underlined the relevance of this partnership through funding from Sahel Alliance members directed towards the implementation of the Priority Investment Program (PIP), including the entire G5 Sahel PDU.
In 2021, the G5 Sahel launched a process to evaluate and update its strategic and programmatic frameworks. This process provided an opportunity to exchange views with a number of stakeholders and technical and financial partners. It led to a complete revision of the intervention approach and program content, proposing new intervention priorities for the G5 Sahel region.
The new SDS and PIP were presented and adopted at the G5 Sahel ministerial meeting in Nouakchott on July 09, 2023, the day before the Sahel Alliance General Assembly.
In the coming months, discussions will continue to consolidate support for the G5 Sahel’s development priorities.
Reinvigorated Partnership between Alliance Sahel and G5 Sahel
At the 4th General Assembly of the Sahel Alliance, members reiterated their support to the G5 Sahel. To support the momentum generated by the roadmap of the Mauritanian presidency of the G5 Sahel, a revised version of the partnership protocol linking the two initiatives since 2018 was signed by the G5 Sahel Executive Secretary and the Head of the Sahel Alliance Coordination Unit on July 10, 2023 in Nouakchott. Its objective, which is operational in scope, is to better align the actions of the Sahel Alliance members with the priorities of the Sahel countries.
To this end, the revised protocol notably provides for the establishment of a framework to strengthen dialogue on public development policies and related reforms, in order to identify and implement joint initiatives serving the development objectives of the revised Development and Security Strategy and its Priority Investment Pprogramme (2013-2028) approved by the G5 Sahel Council of Ministers on the 9th of July.
Going further
