For the purpose of this report, “Sahel countries” refers to Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and the Niger.

This report considers the multifaceted impacts of transnational organized crime on four pillars of stability and development in the Sahel region: 1. peace and security; 2. human rights; 3. governance and rule of law; and 4. sustainable development. It draws from the analysis of six illicit market reports published separately, namely: trafficking in drugs, fuel, gold, firearms, medical products, and smuggling of migrants. This study seeks to provide policymakers with a better understanding of how organized crime undermines efforts under the four pillars. The goal is the implementation of more evidence-based stabilization and sustainable development strategies in the Sahel. The Sahel countries have experienced an upsurge in organized crime since the 1990s, with a diversification and increase in types, volumes and values of illicit products trafficked through the region. The rising transit of high-value and strategic commodities across the Sahel has driven the evolution of some of the existing informal trading routes and networks into a more criminalized ecosystem and triggered competition between criminal groups over access to significant profits. The markets around these commodities – whether they are produced, trafficked or used in the Sahel or destined to other countries – have short and long-term impacts on the region.

In a region affected by high mortality rates due to preventable communicable diseases, including malaria, and with limited health infrastructure and coverage, trafficking in medical products has a major human cost and constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of safe, effective, quality and affordable essential health care (SDG 3). In sub-Saharan Africa, 430,000 deaths per year are linked to falsified and substandard anti-malarial medicines and pediatric  antibiotics. The negative impact on health can also be observed in the operations of illicit gold mining, where exposure to mercury carries significant health risks for miners and nearby communities. Drug trafficking also directly
threatens the health of individuals, particularly young people, fueling drug use in the region, including the non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids such as tramadol. An increasing number of female and youth patients for drug-use disorders were reported in Burkina Faso in 2022. Crime-related violence and certain types of trafficking, such as smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons and drug trafficking, can also create long-term trauma both for victims and criminal actors, undermining mental health and well-being.