“This brief seeks to achieve two things. Firstly, it argues that greater attention to the insurgencies taking place in Mali, Niger and Casamance is critical to the maintenance of stability, good governance and peace in the West Africa region and that if no appropriate measures are taken by the respective governments, the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU)and/or the United Nations (UN), the level of violence might increase, spread and escalate into regional wars. The issue is that these conflicts are only captured in the news or by the international community only when grave incidents occur. Secondly, the brief argues that these ‘small’ or ‘low-level’ conflicts are protracted mainly because of the complexity of their interconnected nature. Therefore, this is a call for international and regional actors, in particular ECOWAS to take appropriate preventive measures if civil wars of the kind in Liberia and Sierra Leone are to be avoided.”
