UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said expanding terrorist networks, mass displacement, and the collapse of essential services in West Africa and the Sahel are a growing concern worldwide.

Mr Guterres told the UN Security Council at UN headquarters that the growth in terrorist groups was “not only a regional dramatic reality”.

“Progressive links of its groups in Africa and beyond make it a growing global threat,” stated the UN chief. “The vast Sahel region, which stretches almost coast to coast across Africa, accounts for 19 per cent of terrorist attacks worldwide and for over half of global terrorism-related casualties.

Around four million people are now displaced across Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and neighbouring countries.

Mr Guterres urged a “unified, coherent and consensus-based” regional response, the maintenance of financial support for humanitarian response plans, and a development strategy to address the root causes of terrorism.

Along those lines, he encouraged intelligence sharing and financial tracking through the  UN Global Counter-Terrorism Compact, the UN’s coordination mechanism against terror, and ECOWAS’ counter-terrorism strategy.

He further noted that humanitarian appeals for the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin remain severely underfunded — less than one quarter of the 4.9 billion dollars required has been raised.

“Terrorists thrive where the social contract is broken,” he added, highlighting the need to fight poverty and invest in sustainable development.

Omar Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission, warned that terrorism had spread beyond the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin to threaten all of West Africa.

He informed the Security Council that ECOWAS was accelerating deployment of its standby force, starting with 1,650 personnel and scaling up to 5,000 with regional and partner support.

He said that while partners have taken action to combat terrorism, the proliferation of these initiatives has led to “fragmentation,” hindering cooperation.

Touray stressed that coordination and cohesion must be a priority.

“No amount of money, no amount of equipment will help us overcome terror if we don’t collaborate and build synergy,” he said. “Our current differences should not be exploited; they should be bridged.”

Julius Bio, president of Sierra Leone, said, “We must re-imagine ECOWAS not just as a regional bloc, but as a community of courage, the moral compass and stabilising force of Africa.”

Mr Bio also holds the Security Council presidency for November and the chair of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government. He called for democratic trust, decisive action in the fight against extremism, and regional security and coordination.

On those grounds, he proposed an ECOWAS-UN-African Union compact, a coordinated mechanism to ensure predictable financing and operations across the region.

(NAN)