WHILE Africa strives for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 and African Union (AU) Agenda 2063, its efforts and goodwill are debilitated, among other things, by growing poverty and the vicious spiral of violent extremism.

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI, 2023) suggests that “10 million of the 12 million poor people with the highest deprivation scores (90-100 per cent) live in sub-Saharan Africa and  the intensity of poverty is particularly serious [because] the region is home not only to the highest number of poor people, but also to the poorest of the poor.” These poorest of the poor face deprivations especially in health, education and standard of living, which also directly affect their lives and wellbeing.

Commenting on sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty incidence, UNDP Africa Governance and Development Outlook (2024) suggests 462 million people in the region were still living in extreme poverty in 2023, equivalent to about 38 per cent of the population, showing a slight increase from 2022 data which estimated extreme poverty at 36 per cent of the population, which translates into persons living below $2.15 (about Sh3,000 per person per day). “The percentage of people living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to rise until at least 2030.”

Moreover, in the past five years 36 of the 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have experienced at least one external conflict, according to Global Peace Index (GPI, 2024). “African countries face varying degrees of security threats…have varying levels of socio-political instability, rebellion, intra-and inter-ethnic conflict, inter-state conflicts, illicit trafficking in arms, drugs, humans and minerals, and fighting over the control of resources,” says Agenda 2030: How Africa Can Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (Version 2, 2017).  

Yet, aspiration 4 of ‘Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want’ strives for a peaceful and secure Africa as it states: “Africa will be a peaceful and secure continent, with harmony among communities starting at grassroots level. The management of our diversity will be a source of wealth, harmony and social and economic transformation rather than a source of conflict.” So, how can envisaged progress in Africa co-exist with the vicious spiral of insecurity?

GPI (2024) says the world has become less peaceful over the past 16 years, with the average country score deteriorating by 4.5 per cent since the inception of GPI in 2008. “Of the 163 countries in the GPI, 95 recorded deteriorations, while 66 recorded improvements and two recorded no change. Seventeen of the 23 GPI indicators deteriorated between 2008 and 2023 while seven improved.”

Furthermore, the report says the economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2023 was $19.1 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. “This figure is equivalent to 13.5 per cent of the world’s economic activity (gross world product) or $2,380 per person. Military and internal security expenditure accounts for over 74 per cent of the total economic impact of violence, with the economic impact of military spending alone accounting for $8.4 trillion in the past year.” This has made many countries experience a reduction in their GDP, according to the report.

Surprisingly, the epicentre of terrorism is shifting from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to sub-Saharan Africa where there is fertile ground and conflict remains the primary driver of terrorist activity as it accounted for 90 per cent of terror attacks in 2023, according to Global Terrorism Index (GTI, 2024), which ranked 163 economies over five years.  The report says “terrorism is a unique threat not because it kills the most people, but because it has the greatest potential psychological and social impact.” At global level while deaths from terrorism rose to 8,352 in 2023, a 22-per cent increase from the year before, terrorism attacks became more deadly in 2023 with 2.5 deaths per attack compared to 1.6 in 2022.

“Sub-Saharan Africa recorded the most deaths of any region for the seventh consecutive year, with an increase of 21 per cent compared to 2022. However, most of the impact of terrorism in the region is concentrated in the Central Sahel.”

UNDP in its report titled “Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment (2017)” suggests that a sense of grievance towards and limited confidence in government is associated with the highest incidence of violent extremism. This includes a belief that “the government only looks after the interests of a few, low level of trust in government authorities, and experience, or willingness to report experience, of bribe-paying.”

The report says while those most susceptible to recruitment express a significantly lower degree of confidence in the potential for democratic institutions to deliver progress or meaningful change, positive experience of effective service provision is confirmed as a source of resilience. UNDP findings show that respondents, who believed that their governments’ provision of education was either excellent or improving, “were less likely to be a member of a violent extremist group, within the sample.”

The report says a striking 71 per cent pointed to government action, including killing of a family member or friend or arrest of a family member or friend, as an incident that prompted them to join the extremist group. “These findings throw into stark relief the question of how counter-terrorism and wider security functions of governments in at-risk environments conduct themselves with regard to human rights and due process. State security-actor conduct is revealed as a prominent accelerator of recruitment, rather than the reverse.”