As alumni in the Africa’s counterterrorism “community of interest” have been tracking through their work, the pace of violence perpetrated by terrorist and violent extremist groups across the African continent has increased. The latest research by the Africa Center finds that in the Sahel and Coastal West Africa, the last decade has been characterized by the increased implantation and spread of organizations like Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) across the Sahel. There has also been spillover of terrorist and violent extremist group activities into the northern areas of coastal West African countries. Across the Sahel and Coastal West Africa, fatalities linked to the activities of these groups has increased nearly 22-fold in this timeframe, while regional coordination to deter them from exploiting gaps in different countries’ border security systems has struggled to keep pace. In the neighboring Lake Chad Basin, the last two years have seen an uptick in fatalities due to Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) as well, especially as the Nigerian Armed Forces have sought to crack down on these groups.
Within this context, tri-border areas in the region have become critical flashpoints for terrorist infiltration, cross-border trafficking, and organized crime, and places where terrorist and violent extremist groups have the opportunity to play upon citizens’ grievances and take advantage of porous borders to further entrench their presence and activities in West Africa. Despite some differences between Nigeria and Sahelian states (which are facing the challenges of countering terrorism in active theaters of operations for violent extremist groups) and Senegal and Coastal West African states (which are more principally focused on prevention, with less extensively kinetic approaches to the problem), the need for enhanced border security cooperation is greater than ever.
In light of these challenges, over fifty alumni of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) came together in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire from May 11-13, 2026 to combine their latest knowledge and experiences in counterterrorism strategy implementation, border security management, and the oversight of counterterrorism resourcing, with the goal of identifying ways to enhance African security forces’ efforts to manage and disrupt terrorist threats across the region. They focused on brainstorming how the Africa Center network of alumni chapters, alumni subject matter experts, and the cross-national “community of interest” on counterterrorism can expand their contributions to addressing the region-wide strategy, coordination, and governance challenges that persist around counterterrorism in the Sahel and West Africa.
Bringing Together Alumni Experts and Alumni Chapters to Assess the Way Forward
The Alumni Workshop on Counterterrorism Strategy Implementation and Oversight brought together select ACSS alumni who are military and civilian experts from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. Participants came from agencies within their countries’ executive branch (army, gendarmerie, police, National Security Advisor’s office, National Early Warning Center), defense and security committees in national parliaments, local-level administration (prefects and mayors), and civil society. Partners were also present from the African Union Counterterrorism Center (AUCTC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism (AILCT), and the Network of African Parliamentarians – Heads of Defense Committees (REPAM-CDS).
Alumni exchanges during the workshop drew on a significant institutional strength: that nearly all countries in the region have a counterterrorism strategy documented on paper, whether in stand-alone form or as part of a national security or defense strategy. Multiple countries also have the experience of having adapted their counterterrorism strategies after an initial implementation period of several years. This practice has allowed different countries to adjust to the changing nature of the threat and consult key stakeholders on how to adapt accordingly.
In Abidjan, national and local leaders as well as defense parliamentarians from select countries had the opportunity to share practical recommendations on the way forward from their contrasting vantage points. National-level experts from several countries mentioned that they have achieved better anticipation of terrorist threats and have improved early warning by coordinating with local leaders. Coordinating evenly across multiple localities that are most affected by terrorism is a formidable challenge in multiple countries. It is also challenging to ensure that local-level budget allocations are appropriately calibrated to facilitate national counterterrorism strategy implementation. Along these lines, experts discussed the recent impact of community-focused social service and development programs that governments have pursued in multiple countries – especially programs that allow local leaders and constituents to select the projects that they want for building community resilience.
The alumni workshop also facilitated cross-country learning about each country’s particular strategic context. Alumni recognized and appreciated that there are notable cross-border differences in the predominant approaches to terrorism that countries choose to take. In light of these distinctions, the workshop offered experts a forum to reflect on how countries that are currently more focused on prevention (like Coastal West African countries and Senegal) can learn lessons from countries that are focused on countering in addition to prevention (like Nigeria and Sahelian countries), and vice versa. From these practical comparisons, alumni experts painted a comprehensive picture of multiple facets of the terrorism threat landscape and of countries’ range of responses. The overall message of the three-day workshop was clear: regionalized cross-border coordination, information-sharing, and further enhancing the integration of local leaders into national counterterrorism strategy implementation processes are critical.
Leveraging the Alumni Network Locally, Nationally, and Regionally
In each of these areas of action, the Africa Center alumni network has unique strengths that it can apply to enhance the regional response to terrorist threats. The ACSS network includes national-level civilian and military leaders, as well as alumni who are local administrative or elected leaders, or civil society practitioners who work on the community level. There is therefore considerable potential for the ACSS alumni chapters and networks to pursue small projects that help connect the security services with local leaders in communities that are seeking to build more resilience. The chapters are also well positioned in many cases to provide government leaders their expert perspectives on pressing policy issues related to counterterrorism; help national professional military education institutions develop modules to teach cadets, staff, or senior officers about civil-military approaches to counterterrorism; or train defense-focused legislators or other government officials to use their oversight powers to ensure that the security sector gets the resources it needs to take successful counterterrorism actions.
Furthermore, some alumni at the workshop underscored the importance of helping citizens understand what their states and governments are trying to do to reduce terrorist threats and protect communities. Refining and updating doctrine for civil-military actions to include inputs from non-traditional security actors – like parliamentarians representing certain communities, or local traditional, elected, and administrative leaders – could spur ongoing innovation in this area, they claimed. Parliamentarians in the Africa Center network may also have a role to play in helping their security sector colleagues within the executive branch make a compelling case for governments to budget for military units to take civil-military actions tailored to specific local needs.
To these ends, alumni considered the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the Africa Center alumni chapters and alumni network to identify next steps. For instance, chapter leaders from Benin and Senegal reported to the network on past work they have done, from interagency dialogues on coordinating prevention efforts to symposia on countering terrorism financing. They invited the Côte d’Ivoire chapter to join the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that their two chapters signed in January 2026 to coordinate across countries and plan joint activities building upon these past national-level initiatives. While awaiting further response from Cote d’Ivoire, the chapters in Benin and Senegal are currently developing a joint plan of action. As reported in other parts of this newsletter, the Nigeria chapter strengthened its linkages with the National Counterterrorism Centre as a result of the workshop when alumni returned home.
Conclusion: A Network-Wide Agenda
Ultimately, the alumni workshop underscored the fact that while most countries in the region have national strategies for addressing these threats, challenges remain in mobilizing joint capacity to deter terrorist and violent extremist groups. As informal professional communities (and in certain cases, formal associations) that coalesce the expertise of current and retired security officials with a range of civilian and military backgrounds, Africa Center alumni networks have the potential to catalyze dialogue and learning between counterterrorism practitioners that positions the region to enhance the coordination and comprehensiveness of the response.
However, it is not only the alumni who attended the Abidjan workshop who have the ideas, expertise, and institutional influence to make a difference. The counterterrorism solutions that alumni were brainstorming at the Abidjan workshop complement conversations that participants in other Africa Center programs are having about the way forward. Many such alumni belong to Africa Center communities of interest on related topics like countering transnational organized crime, cybersecurity/emerging technologies, and security sector governance. For example, the Africa Center has recently begun working with newly minted and returning alumni on building enhanced skills to fuse a wide range of open-source intelligence about terrorist activities and terrorism financing. Other alumni have been part of recent cybersecurity and emerging technology webinars to coordinate the counter-drone work they do together to fight terrorism. Each of these interlocking endeavors can help strengthen the harmonization of African states’ efforts to counter terrorist threats, which know no borders.