Welcome's European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on the EU Strategy for the Sahel.

Torn by climate change, food insecurity, uncontrolled population growth, political instability and terrorism,

the Sahel poses an evolving threat on Europe's doorstep, as the August coup in Mali has once again shown.

With more or less success, the EU strategy for the region has tried to address the multiple factors of instability,

but the new action plan for the region will need to take the EU's and Africa's new geopolitical interests on board

if it is to be more successful than its predecessor.

Stay with us.

The Sahel is a region stretching across the south-central latitudes of northern Africa

between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.

In 2014, five Sahel countries, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Maritania and Niger,

came together as the G5 Sahel Group to try to find common solutions to common problems,

mainly linked to climate change and security.

Since the 1970s, temperatures in the Sahel have risen twice as fast as in the rest of the world,

with devastating effects on agriculture.

This, combined with a very large migratory flow caused by conflicts and insecurity in the area,

have exacerbated old community rivalries and tensions over land and access to food.

According to the United Nations, 12 million people in the region face a serious lack of food.

Struggling to provide basic services throughout their territory and security at their borders,

governments are competing with armed groups that have emerged from failed regimes in their neighbourhood, notably Libya.

So how does instability in the region affect the EU and what has it done about it?

Irregular migration, the risk of terrorist attacks on EU soil, illegal trafficking, you name it.

To address the root causes of the complex crisis in the region, the EU adopted a strategy

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