The Sahel is at a cross-road. Recent events in Mali have fuelled increasing concerns over the security of the entire Sahel region. It has shown that the primary drivers of fragility in the region are cross-border and closely intertwined and that the simultaneous and long-standing challenges of poverty, access to food, climate change, fragile governance or absence of the State, corruption and unresolved conflict function as a springboard for instability.
In this context, the EU has accelerated the implementation of a comprehensive and holistic approach towards the region in the framework of the 2011 Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel 
, which contains four lines of action mobilising more than €600 million :
- development, good governance and internal conflict resolution
- political & diplomatic
- security & rule of law
- countering violent extremism.
Background material
- 09/12/2013 – L’Union européenne poursuit son engagement en faveur du développement et de la stabilisation du Mali
- 07/11/2013 – Conférence pour le Mali: première réunion internationale de suivi
- 05/11/2013 – European Union maintains its commitment to Mali