Armed groups in northwest Africa have “gone rural” in the past few years, according to a new OECD report released this week based on our work in northwest Africa.
Using disaggregated data from ACLED, WorldPop and Africapolis, the report examines whether violence display an urban character, how urban and rural violence have changed over time, and whether violence tends to vary spatially, including in borderlands.
The report illuminates how violence tends to shift to rural areas as the region becomes more urban. This ruralization of violence observed since the early 2010s contradicts the assumption that the urbanization of the African continent would lead to more political violence in cities.
The report also shows that while most of the violence has occurred in rural areas, political violence clusters near cities. Small cities are particularly affected by political violence.
Finally, the report suggests that the increasing ruralization of conflicts in northwest Africa is due to the emergence of Jihadist insurgencies, who entertain a peculiar and opportunistic relationship with urban areas.
A summary of the report is available on the UF Sahel Research Group and OECD websites. The report is freely available in English and French.
The new report was launched by Dr. Marie Trémolières and Mr. Laurent Bossard at the Sahel Coalition meeting in Paris, and by Dr. Olivier Walther and Dr. Steven Radil at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Denver, in March 2023.
By Olivier Walther