A systems analysis that highlights the interplay between conflict dynamics and mobility economies in northern Niger and southern Libya should inform future policy decisions regarding conflict stabilization in the Sahel-Sahara region.
Armed conflict in Libya since 2011 has played a critical role in turning the city of Agadez, in neighbouring Niger, into the preeminent transit hub for West African migrants trying to reach Libya and Europe. The resulting migrant-smuggling revenues generated by certain communities, primarily the Tebu, have shaped conflict dynamics in southern Libya. While efforts by the Nigerien government and the international community in 2015 to criminalize the transportation of migrants in Niger succeeded in fracturing existing smuggling networks, the economic impact and second-order social and political effects have strained livelihoods, placed migrants in greater danger, and expanded existing social and political tensions in the region.
A gold rush in Niger and neighbouring Chad from the mid-2010s helped offset several of the negative economic consequences stemming from the disruption of the migrant smuggling industry in Agadez, while also reconfiguring transnational political economies and various conflict dynamics in Niger, Chad and southern Libya. This interplay is just one example that underscores how – rather than being a discrete ‘criminal’ activity that takes place apart from or parallel to other formal and informal economies – the migration economy of the Agadez region is intimately enmeshed within numerous overlapping social, economic and political systems that transcend borders and communities throughout the region.
This paper illustrates the socio-economic processes behind changes in the Agadez mobility economy. These underlying processes are highly complex and interconnected social phenomena, but for the purposes of this paper they have been simplified through a qualitative systems analysis. A systems analysis operates from the premise that such social processes are best understood as a social system that contains adaptive structures and evolutionary mechanisms. These processes, identified by the qualitative systems analysis, are part of a vast web of social dynamics.
For the purposes of this paper, the processes have been simplified as much as possible to allow for an analysis of areas where policy or programmatic interventions may be particularly effective. The systems analysis focuses on two types of connecting loops: causal loops, which identify causal relationships between the key social, political, security and economic factors that shape the interaction between the movement of people and wider social processes, and feedback cycles, which show the interplay between the causal loops.
The systems analysis in this paper shows how an economic feedback loop drove the expansion of the mobility economy in Agadez and subsequently how criminalization reconfigured the mobility economy, stimulating shifts towards more securitized processes and greater reliance on artisanal gold mining. These causal loops and feedback cycles represent a dynamic and non-linear system. The systems modelled here are extrapolated from data collected from research interviews and a political economy assessment of the region, as detailed in the methodology section. It should be noted that the systems created are social constructs that are defined by the researcher, and it is for the researcher to define the system and its boundaries.
This paper comes at a time when migrant smuggling in Niger and cooperation between the country and various traditional development and security partners are at the forefront of current domestic and international policy debates. On 26 July 2023, elements of the Nigerien military, led by Abdourahamane Tiani, placed then-president Mohamed Bazoum under house arrest and seized control of the government. At the time of writing, Bazoum is still being held by the coup leaders, and the junta have proposed a process of transitioning power that will not exceed three years.
The coup and subsequent consolidation of power by its leaders were widely condemned by several of Niger’s prominent security and development partners, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the EU, France and the US, as well as key regional powers, most notably Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. Neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali – which are both led by transitional governments that seized power under similar circumstances and purported justifications – expressed support for the coup and have backed the new government.
This paper comes at a time when migrant smuggling in Niger and cooperation between the country and various traditional development and security partners are at the forefront of current domestic and international policy debates.
Since the coup, geopolitical repercussions have continued to reverberate throughout the region. In September 2023, the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced the formation of a mutual defence pact dubbed the Alliance of Sahel States. Weeks later, in December 2023, Burkina Faso and Niger announced that they were following Mali in leaving the G5 Sahel, a security initiative largely funded by the EU, which sought to enhance security cooperation between Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to combat terrorist groups operating in their territories. In January 2024, the military governments of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso also announced their intentions to leave ECOWAS.
France, which relocated many of its troops to Niger after being forced to leave both Burkina Faso and Mali by their respective new governments, subsequently removed its 1,450-strong force from Niger in response to calls by the Nigerien government for their immediate withdrawal. In early December 2023, Niger announced that it had decided to ‘withdraw the privileges and immunities granted’ under the EU Military Partnership Mission in Niger as well as the EU Civilian Capacity-Building Mission (EUCAP), which had been in place since 2012. The US, which had more than 1,000 troops in the country and operated drones out of several locations, including a $110 million airbase outside of Agadez since 2018, agreed in April 2024 to withdraw its troops from Niger after the Nigerien government declared the American military presence in the country ‘illegal’. The Nigerien government, like its counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso, also took several steps in late 2023 and into 2024 to deepen its defence and military cooperation with Russia. Russian military trainers arrived in Niger in April 2024.
For the purposes of this paper, perhaps the most significant recent development is the 25 November 2023 decision by the Nigerien government to repeal the 2015 anti-smuggling and human trafficking law. As will be outlined in detail below, the controversial legislation effectively criminalized the migrant transport economy in Agadez, significantly altering a key element of the political economy during a period of financial precarity, increased insecurity and political uncertainty throughout much of the Sahel and North Africa.
Following these events, a range of international stakeholders have had no choice but to re-examine their policies towards Niger, a country that had been seen as a linchpin within international strategies to stabilize the Sahel region. International efforts to engage on the issue of migration management at the policy level must be recalibrated to the new geopolitical realities of the region. Assumptions on which previous policies were predicated need to be reconsidered. To that end, this paper concludes with an assessment of the policy implications and key lessons for stakeholders working in the areas of conflict stabilization, as Niger and the broader Sahel region enter a new period of political uncertainty amid enduring security challenges.
Methodology
In addition to a comprehensive review of the existing research literature, this analysis is informed by 19 unstructured and semi-structured interviews carried out by the author in partnership with a local researcher in Agadez in November 2022, building on multiple previous research trips to Agadez by the author since 2014. These interviews took place in individual and group settings and engaged with current and former migrant smugglers, migrants transiting through Agadez, as well as current and former local government officials and members of civil society organizations. They were conducted in French, except in circumstances in which the interviewees preferred to speak in either Hausa, Tebu or Arabic, in which case a local translator was used during the conversation.
A local researcher carried out 20 subsequent structured interviews, guided by a qualitative questionnaire, in Agadez in September 2023. The questionnaire was designed to better understand perceptions among citizens of Agadez, across a broad spectrum of demographics, of the impact of migrant smuggling and local and international attempts to curtail irregular migration. These interviews placed a particular emphasis on understanding the direct and indirect economic, political, social and security repercussions as observed by those living in Agadez.
The paper has drawn extensively on economic assessments, satellite data and mobility data commissioned for Chatham House through the XCEPT Research Fund. First, Satellite Application Catapult commissioned satellite data and data analysis from Copernicus Sentinel data, USGS Landsat Data, Environment Systems Limited, OpenStreetMaps contributors, Maxar Technologies, CNES and Distribution Airbus DS alongside their own data analysis. Together, this commissioned research contributed data on the movement of people across Niger, the agriculture and gold sector in Niger and the urban development of Agadez through nightlight analysis and other urban expansion measures. Second, Satellite Applications Catapult also commissioned research from EMDYN’s Geospatial Intelligence Fusion Platform, which combines mobility data and commercial satellite imagery. Third, the XCEPT Research Fund directly commissioned XCEPT partner Emani to conduct economic assessments of Agadez.
About the paper
This research paper is one of three publications from the Human Smuggling and Trafficking through East and West Africa to Libya case study investigated by Chatham House for the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme. Through the application of a qualitative systems analysis, the case study seeks to understand how the outbreak of violent conflict in Libya has conditioned the movement of people from Nigeria to Libya via Niger between 2011 and 2023. The series includes a recently published paper titled Tracing the ‘continuum of violence between Nigeria and Libya, which focuses on human smuggling and trafficking-in-persons from Edo State in southern Nigeria, and a forthcoming paper on the impact of human smuggling and trafficking on Libya’s conflict economy.
