Africa: The Challenges of Development (Sahara Case Study)

- In what ways does the Sahara region of Africa represent a strategic area of the world?
The Sahara is the main desert on the earth (8.5M square km, 5000km long), a very arid area with almost no
rain. The only places for water are oases. It has been described as a marginalized area empty from human
occupation. But over the last 50 years, it has become an attractive and dynamic area—its population has
doubled since the 1950s, with 12M inhabitants today—mainly because of vast resources found underground.
The Sahara is a large area of desert on both sides of the Tropic of Cancer. A strong anticyclone limits the rain at
less than 100mm per year.
Wealthy desert with coveted resources: This desert had been integrated in the globalized world (as it existed)
for centuries as it was a major theatre of dense trade flows (North to South) during the Middle Age with
caravans of camels going from oasis to oasis, carrying slaves, gold, spices, ivory, and other goods. However,
maritime trade from the 16th century and colonization marginalized the interior area of the desert.
The Sahara became once again an attractive place at the end of the 1950s with strong demographic growth
(thanks to both demographic transition and migrations). The population increase occurred primarily on its
northern part, and 90% of the population is today city-dwellers. Such revival was based on the exploitation of
natural and strategic resources by foreign TNCs. Hydrocarbons (Algeria and Libya with British Petroleum and
Total), minerals (iron in Mauritania, uranium in Niger with the French group Areva/Orano, phosphates in
Morocco and Algeria), and underground water sources. Because of the aridity of the area, such water has
become strategic and is used today to create huge irrigated agricultural areas in Libya, Algeria and Morocco.
The underground water is also transferred to the urban waterfront in Libya.
In the Sahara, most of the oil and gas resources are located in the Northern part of the desert (the French
administration started to exploit them in Algeria). Such deposits have increased the GDP of countries such as
Libya and Algeria (18th and 17th world producers of oil). Algeria hopes to be able to develop its shale gas
resources, and Morocco exploits its phosphate resources (3rd world producer).
These resources should have been a way to start development (reality in Algeria 30% of its GDP is based on oil
and gas) but too often, natural resources are exported raw—as in not refined—without being exploited inside
the country. For example, Mauritania exports its iron raw. These resources are also too often controlled by
foreign companies such as Total, Exxon, or the Chinese China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in
Sudan since the 1990s and in Algeria, Niger and Chad.

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Areas of commercial agriculture in Algeria. Mauritanian subsistence farming.

Windfall economies and development

Percentage of
total exports in Percentage of
hyrdrocarbons population with
and mineral access to
resources electricity
(2014)

Algeria 98 99.3

Mauritania 98 18.2

Niger 71 9.3

Sudan 97 29

Tunisia 24 100
Gas installations of the Algerian public company
Sonatrach.

Oil is often the center of conflicts because the oil money can support political parties or armed groups. Oil is
one of the reasons of the civil war in Libya beginning in 2011. Oil was discovered in 1959 and made the state—
then a kingdom—wealthy. People in Benghazi (eastern part of the country) did not receive any money from the
exploitation of oil managed by the capital of the country Tripoli (located in the western part of the country).
Benghazi was the first city to rebel against Muammar Gaddafi. In 2015, tensions between nationalists and
Islamists have stymied attempts to produce a stable government, and the country is ungovernable because of the
fighting between rival militias. The central government collapsed, and the international community has
struggled to bring political factions together. Controlling the refineries, therefore the trade of oil and its benefits,
is a key aspect of the fight.
Water is a major resource in the Sahara, so it is often a source of tensions and disputes. On the Nile River,
Ethiopia is pressing ahead with construction of a major new dam on the River Nile, despite stiff opposition
from Egypt. This new dam is called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (known as Gerd). It will span an
area of 1,800 sq. km and will be Africa's largest hydropower dam, standing some 170m tall. Downstream areas
in Egypt, who rely almost totally on the waters of the Nile, say their water supply will be under threat. Egypt
and Sudan currently get the lion's share of the Nile's waters under colonial-era treaties. While Sudan backs
Ethiopia's plans, Egypt has remained opposed and talks to ease tensions between the two countries have
collapsed. Egypt fears Ethiopia's dam will restrict the flow of this strategic waterway—the main source of water
in a country where rainfall is scarce.

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A place of circulation: The Sahara is divided between 10 independent countries which are all interested in the
desert because of its natural underground resources. Such interests are based on political and symbolic reasons
(against the colonial or neocolonial process), but also on economic reasons (increase of the national production
and exportation of the resources), strategic reasons (control of the entire national territory) and demographic
reasons (balancing the population in an empty area, to control it also: growing population in the desert, from
2M in the 1950s to 6M today mainly in the cities).
In order to integrate the Sahara into national territory, each state has created infrastructure such as
administration, cities, and development (roads, railroads, airports). Colonial powers created railroads and
pipelines (1200km in Sudan until Port-Sudan) to export the natural resources to the coast to export them to the
mother countries. Roads play a major role in the development of the Sahara because it allows the opening of the
local economy to new markets, highlighting the creation of networks on different scales.
In this new context, since the 1990s, exchanges between both sides of the Sahara have increased. Thanks to the
differences of wealth and rules between Maghreb states and Sahel states, people exchange manufactured goods
and fuel from the North (from Morocco or Algeria) for livestock, agricultural products from the South (from
Agadez or Timbuktu in Mali).
Drugs and smuggled goods (tobacco with the Marlboro connection from the South to the North) are easily
exchanged because of the size and the porous nature of the borders and the small number of guards fighting
against well-equipped smugglers. Such a parallel economy is well accepted by the States on both sides because
it allows the arrival of cash helping the survival and the projects of the local population. Such trafficking also
implies the increasing exchange of weapons but also criminal activities such as human trafficking, and
counterfeiting. Border areas in the Sahara are safe places for the smugglers, far from the rules of each country.
And the national police forces do not seem to be able to stop them because of the lack of policemen, of
equipment and of the size of the areas to control.
The Sahara has also a function of transit for migrants from the South of the Sahara trying to reach Europe
(trying to reach first the Canary Islands, Tunis, or Tripoli before crossing the Mediterranean Sea). Today, thanks
to the chaos in Libya, this country is the main transit point for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe by
sea. In each of the last three years, 150,000 people have made the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean
Sea from Libya. For four years in a row, 3,000 refugees have died while attempting the journey, according to
figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.N.’s migration agency.

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An increasing number of conflicts: Since the 2000s, more and more armed conflicts take place in the Sahara
because of the resources and disputed borders (and their symbolic importance), creating a difficult period for
the Sahara. Most of the conflicts are internal, inside national states. Many nomadic peoples are opposed to the
existence state, often because of the policies of forced settlement of the nomads in places like Mali and Niger,
and to the foreign TNCs. Since the 1990s, Tuaregs in Niger have fought against the French TNC Areva
controlling mines of uranium because the Tuaregs feel that they don’t benefit from the opening of the mines,
but also for environmental reasons. The Southern part of Morocco is also contested, ruled by the Sahrawi.
Within some states, northern and southern populations fight each other, such as in Chad or in Sudan with the
creation in July 2011 of a new state, South Sudan, ending a long and bloody civil war (2M casualties). But the
division of the country did not end tensions and military actions because oil remains a key aspect of the
problem: 85% of the national production is done in the South when the pipelines and the oil industry are located
in the North.
The crisis/civil war/chaos in Libya since 2011 and the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi has increased the
tensions in the area. The eccentric 69-year-old dictator, who came to power in a 1969 coup, headed a
government that was accused of numerous human rights violations against its own people and was linked to
terrorist attacks, including the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. After more than 40
years in power, Gaddafi saw his regime begin to unravel in February 2011, when anti-government protests
broke out in Libya following the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia earlier that year. Gaddafi vowed to crush the
revolt and ordered a violent crackdown against the demonstrators. However, by August, rebel forces, with
assistance from NATO, had gained control of Tripoli and established a transitional government. Gaddafi went
into hiding, but on October 20, 2011, he was captured and shot by rebel forces.
The Sahara has become integrated in the global world through the clandestine migrants going to Europe, legal
and illegal traffic and mainly the Islamic terrorist groups gathered into the desert as a fallback base because of
its immensity and of the difficulty of the various states to control it—taking advantage of the emptiness of the
space.
The most famous terrorist group is AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) in the Sahel in Niger, Mali,
Mauritania and Algeria. It has its roots in the bitter Algerian civil war of the early 1990s They attract members
from Mauritania,
Morocco, Niger and
Senegal as well as from
within Mali where, in
alliance with other
Islamists, it is fighting
French troops on the
ground. They are one
of the best-armed
groups. They plan
bombing attacks in
Algeria and Morocco,
and take European
tourists or workers as
hostages in order to get
money/ransom (80% of
AQIM budget) climate
of insecurity allowing
flows of illicit goods,
weapons and criminal
activities/ no-right area.

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