In 2017, the five Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) decided to join together within the G5 Sahel Joint Force in order to tackle terrorist threats and the growing insecurity in the region. In addition to the operations conducted by the Joint Force, the G5 Sahel countries have decided to create a Police Component of the G5S JF. It is composed of gendarmes deployed with soldiers from the Joint Force (provost units), specialised national police investigation units (present in each G5 country) and specialised counter-terrorism judicial units.
After supporting an initial project to assist the G5 Sahel Joint Force under the African Peace Facility (APF) in 2017, in late 2019, the European Union launched a new programme to support the Police Component of the G5S JF with €18 million of financing from the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP).
Find out more about the project to support the G5 Sahel Joint Force
The objective of the programme to support the Police Component of the G5S JF is to strengthen the operational capacities of the Police Component by enabling it to carry out actions against terrorism and transnational crime, in keeping with the concepts of the rule of law and human rights.
This programme comprises a total of six projects including:
• 5 projects (one per country) to support the operationalisation of the national investigation units, led by three European operators: Civipol (Mali and Mauritania), ENABEL (Burkina Faso) and Coginta (Chad and Niger);
• A project to support regional coordination implemented by Expertise France.
The project to support the regional coordination of the implementation of the Police Component of the G5 Sahel Joint Force (CRPG5) started its activities in November 2019, under the responsibility of Expertise France. It is based on four main objectives:
1) Assist the Defence and Security Office (BDS) of the Executive Secretariat of the G5 in fulfilling its role as the coordinator of activities and advisor to the Executive Secretary in the process to operationalise the Police Component.
2) Contribute to developing a better common understanding of the roles of each stakeholder involved in the judicialisation process in the scope of G5S JF operations.
3) Strengthen cooperation between the various stakeholders in the judicialisation chain, from the scope of the military operations of the G5 Sahel Joint Force, to the provost units and national investigation and intelligence units, and including the specialised judicial units.
4) Strengthen people’s confidence in national and regional institutions and in the G5 Joint Force, by implementing a strategy to raise awareness of the missions of the Police Component.
All the actions focus on the Sahel region and are carried out in close cooperation with the Permanent Secretariat of the G5 Sahel, the G5S JF and the security forces of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
