Food and nutrition security is particularly fragile in the Sahel region as it faces severe climatic conditions and an entanglement of economic, health, and security crises (Olivier de Sardan 2023).
This fragility is reflected in worsening food insecurity across the region. Over the past decade, the prevalence of severe food insecurity increased markedly in Western Africa, based on FAO’s regional grouping, from 11.2 percent to 19.6 percent (FAO et al. 2026b). The Cadre Harmonisé estimates that 47.4 million people, or 11.8 percent of the population across 15 countries, were facing high levels of acute food insecurity by mid-2025 (CILSS et al. 2025). Food insecurity hotspots are concentrated in areas such as the tri-border zone between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and the Lake Chad Basin, which are also the territories highly affected by insecurity (CILSS and FSIN 2025).
The close geographical overlap between areas affected by food insecurity and those affected by broader insecurity illustrates the interconnected nature of these two challenges. In the Sahel, this relationship is not linear but circular: food insecurity contributes to insecurity, while insecurity further aggravates food insecurity. Understanding and breaking this vicious cycle is therefore essential for achieving both regional stability and lasting food security.
Recurring droughts and rainfall variability since the 1970s have contributed to persistent food insecurity across many Sahelian communities (IPCC 2021).
Food Insecurity can become a contributing factor to insecurity, particularly where it interacts with existing social, economic and political pressures (OECD 2022). Climate change can reinforce these pressures by affecting the natural resources on which agricultural and pastoral livelihoods depend and increasing competition over their use (Tarif 2022).
Food Insecurity as a Driver of Insecurity
For many farmers, the expansion of cultivated areas has become an important strategy (in the absence of innovation and transformative agricultural policies and practices) to increase agricultural production in a context of rapid population growth. In parts of the Sahel, agricultural extensification has expanded cultivation into pastoral areas and livestock corridors, while growing land pressure has shortened or eliminated fallow periods (Robert 2010). In parts of Burkina Faso and Niger, for example, changing livelihood strategies in response to drought have brought farming and pastoral activities into closer competition for land and water resources, increasing tensions and, in some contexts, the risk of conflict (Tarif 2022).
These dynamics have generated another form of insecurity: land insecurity linked both to the loss of land and to growing conflicts over land. In turn, these conflicts, together with recurring food deficits, have forced many households to deplete their productive assets, deepening poverty and increasing vulnerability.
Persistent poverty has created fertile ground for the spread of insecurity in recent years in the Sahel. Several factors have contributed to the spread of insecurity, including poor political and economic governance, weak states, and the rise of violent extremist movements. Those recruited by non-state armed groups are overwhelmingly rural young people with few prospects. As recent studies by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) highlight, motivations for joining armed groups are not solely ideological (UNDP 2023). For many, economic marginalization and limited livelihood opportunities are important factors shaping recruitment (Théroux-Bénoni et al. 2016).
How Insecurity Deepens Food Insecurity
Once insecurity becomes entrenched, the relationship reverses. Insecurity—whether linked to communal conflicts, armed groups, or state forces—deeply disrupts food systems. It restricts access to agricultural land, limits the mobility of pastoralists, disorganizes local markets, and disrupts supply chains. In addition, livestock theft, including cattle rustling linked to armed groups, and the taxes imposed by such groups on populations living in areas under their influence further aggravate the situation (Assanvo 2019; UNODC 2024).
Beyond the loss of productive assets suffered by farmers and pastoralists, insecurity also constrains humanitarian access and increases the risk of high levels of malnutrition, particularly among children and pregnant and lactating women (UNICEF 2024).
‟Insecurity—whether linked to communal conflicts, armed groups, or state forces— deeply disrupts food systems.”
This vicious cycle also undermines regional economic security. Indeed, the political fragmentation currently observed in the Sahel and the decline of economic integration can partly be attributed to insecurity. The withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), after accusing the bloc of failing to support their fight against insecurity, has deepened regional political and economic fragmentation (Asadu 2024; OECD 2025a, OECD 2025b). Political tensions between Sahelian and coastal countries have led to restrictions on pastoral mobility—essential for pastoralists’ food security—as well as trade disruptions caused by export bans on food products.
These measures disrupt regional trade and undermine the complementarities between countries, which are essential elements of the region’s food security (CILSS 2026).
The Sahel therefore faces multiple, intertwined forms of insecurity that mutually reinforce one another.
Breaking the Vicious Cycle
Discussions within the framework of the Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA), co-led by the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC/OECD) and CILSS under the auspices of ECOWAS and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), have highlighted the need to move beyond the current response paradigm (RPCA 2026). A new approach is needed that places food security at the center of the political agenda as a pillar of regional security. In this context, the humanitarian-development- peace nexus provides an important framework for addressing immediate needs while simultaneously strengthening resilience, livelihoods, and peacebuilding efforts. Reversing current trends will require significant investments in resilient food systems, rural infrastructure, agricultural productivity, education, and decent employment opportunities for young people. Such investments can strengthen livelihoods, reduce structural vulnerabilities, and diminish the appeal of armed groups (UNDP 2023).
At the regional level, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Chad have committed to accelerating sustainable irrigated agriculture as part of efforts to advance food and nutrition sovereignty and strengthen the resilience of food systems, through the 2025 Dakar+10 Declaration (World Bank 2025b). These commitments reflect a growing recognition that strengthening domestic food systems is not only an economic priority but also an investment in resilience and stability.