With its tomato patches and grazing cattle, the Ivory Coast village of Kimbirila-Nord hardly looks like a front line of the global fight against extremism. But after jihadis attacked a nearby community in Mali five years ago and set up a base in a forest straddling the border, the U.S. committed to spending $20 million to counter the spread of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group here and in dozens of other villages.
The Trump administration’s sweeping foreign aid cuts mean that support is now gone, even as violence in Mali and other countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara has reached record levels and sent tens of thousands refugees streaming into northern Ivory Coast. Locals worry they have been abandoned. Diplomats and aid officials said the termination of aid jeopardizes counterterrorism efforts and weakens U.S. influence in a part of the world where some countries have turned to Russian mercenaries for help.
In Kimbirila-Nord, U.S. funding, among other things, helped young people get job training, built parks for cattle to graze so they are no longer stolen by jihadis on Malian territory, and helped establish an information-sharing system so residents can flag violent encounters to each other and state services. “What attracts young people to extremists is poverty and hunger,” said Yacouba Doumbia, 78-year-old chief of Kimbirila-Nord. “There was a very dangerous moment in 2020. The project came at the right time, and allowed us to protect ourselves.”
Over the last decade, West Africa has been shaken by extremist uprisings and military coups. Groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have conquered large areas and killed thousands in the Sahel and have been spreading into wealthier West African coastal states, such as Ivory Coast, Benin and Togo.
In 2019, President Donald Trump signed the Global Fragility Act that led to the initiatives in northern Ivory Coast. The U.S. goal in this area was to “seize a narrowing prevention window,” according to this year´s congressional report about the implementation of the bipartisan legislation.
Experts say local concerns help drive the popularity of extremist groups: competition for land and resources, exclusion, marginalization and lack of economic opportunities. Across the region, Islamic extremists have recruited among groups marginalized and neglected by central governments.
“Ivory Coast is one of the few countries that still resist the terrorist threat in the Sahel,” said a U.N. official working in the country who was not authorized to speak on the matter publicly. “If we do not continue to support border communities, a minor issue could send them into the arms of extremists.” Trump issued an executive order in January directing a freeze on foreign assistance and a review of all U.S. aid and development work abroad. He charged that much of foreign aid was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
In 2020, when the jihadis struck a Malian village 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, Kimbirila-Nord in many ways fit the description of a community susceptible to extremism. The lives of Malians and Ivorians were intertwined. People crossed the border freely, making it easy for extremists, who like residents spoke Bambara, to access Kimbirila-Nord. Many residents did not have identity cards and few spoke French, leaving them with no access to states services or official information. Different ethnic groups lived next to each other but were divided by conflicts over scarce natural resources and suspicions toward the state. And young people did not have opportunities to make money.
“We were very scared” when the extremists attacked, said Aminata Doumbia, the head of the village’s female farmers cooperative. “Everyone was just looking out for themselves.”
The Ivorian government runs a program that provides professional training, grants and microloans. But access is difficult in villages such as Kimbirila-Nord. Kimbirila-Nord is home to refugees from Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Sifata Berte, 23, fled there with his family two years ago from Mali. He is not eligible for the government-run program, but got training through the project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and now works as an apprentice in an iron workshop.