Protracted violence and insecurity: a quantitative analysis of persistent drivers of rising conflict in the Sahel

Introduction This paper examines the extent to which NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya contributed to the escalation of violent armed conflict in the Sahel, while accounting for the influence of state fragility, environmental scarcity, population size, and government effectiveness. Although existing scholarship has largely emphasised environmental drivers of Sahelian insecurity, the spillover mechanisms of external interventions remain underexplored. Methods Using panel data from 13 Sahelian states covering the period 2012 to 2024, the study applies a two-step System Generalized Method of Moments estimator and Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to address endogeneity, capture persistence in conflict, and assess heterogeneity across conflict intensities. Results The findings show that NATO-related spillover effects significantly increase violent armed conflict, with stronger impacts in high-intensity contexts. State fragility also emerges consistently as a major driver of escalating violence, whereas environmental stressors do not exhibit a robust direct effect. Government effectiveness shows an unexpected positive association with violence. Discussion/Conclusion The study concludes that insecurity in the Sahel is better explained by the interaction between external shocks and entrenched domestic fragilities than by environmental pressures alone.