Africa and Security Force Assistance

This seminar will discuss the challenges of providing security force assistance in fragile states.

Nina Wilén is Assistant Professor in International Relations at Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Director for the Africa Programme at Egmont Institute for International Relations.

Her presentation will focus on Niger and a new strategic military collaboration established in 2017 by the Belgian Special Forces Group, which is part of Belgium’s increased engagement in the Sahel in the last few years. In light of her latest fieldwork trip, she situates this new strategy in a broader context of Belgian military collaboration in Southern Africa and provides a critical analysis of the strategy and its implementation, as well as identifying challenges for the future.

Øystein H. Rolandsen is Senior Researcher at PRIO and Julian Karssen is a Master's student at the University of Oslo.

They will present results from a PRIO policy report on Security Force Assistance to the Sahel and Horn of Africa. The report summarises the main challenges caused by the main providers’ (the US, France and the EU) fragmentary approach and the structural weakness of the highly fragile states in which the SFA programmes are implemented.

Col.Franco Merlino and Capt. Ludovica Glorioso from the NATO Security Force Assistance Centre of Excellence in Rome will conclude the session with remarks on the role of NATO and its member states in the provision of SFA in the continent.