Bridging the Maghreb-Sahel Divide in Policy and Research: Take-aways from the MECAM Policy Talk 2025
André Bank / Clara-Auguste Süß / Julius Dihstelhoff
Bridging the Maghreb-Sahel Divide in Policy and Research: Take-aways from the MECAM Policy Talk 2025
Blogbeitrag | 2025
Abstract
As global attention increasingly turns to the interconnected realities of Africa’s northern and sub-Saharan regions, it becomes imperative to reflect critically on how we approach, define and delimit the Maghreb and the Sahel. Though often treated as distinct regional blocs in policymaking and academic research, the lived realities across these areas are deeply intertwined: historically, politically, socially, economically and environmentally. Against this backdrop, the MECAM Policy Talk 2025 brought together experts on and from the Maghreb as well as on and from Sub-Saharan Africa in Berlin for 2.5 days of intense deliberations. This blog article summarizes the main findings and presents central policy implications.
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This trend analysis examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state and non-state violent actors in the Global South. We provide an ACLED-based interregional mapping of trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
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This special issue covers topics such as critical juncture for the MENA research fields, revisiting the Area Studies Controversy in light of the Arab uprisings and changes that political science research in MENA has yielded.
The article investigates the widespread assumption that socioeconomic marginalization helps explain the dynamics of radicalization, using the example of Islamist radicalization in Egypt and Tunisia after 2011. It develops a theoretical framework informed by social movement theory and, based on a comprehensive study of both academic publications and grey literature on the case studies published between 2011 and 2023, identifies key mechanisms linking socioeconomic factors and Islamist radicalization
In this paper, we study the question of who and what drives forced migration governance in origin, host, and transit states, drawing on empirical material from the contemporary Syrian and Libyan, and the historical Algerian displacement situations.
This trend analysis examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state and non-state violent actors in the Global South. We provide an ACLED-based interregional mapping of trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
