Increasing international management of migration has resulted in diluted state responsibility for policies that can have devastating effects on the ground.

Efforts to counter radicalization have generally adopted a security or development approach, yielding few tangible results. For a more effective approach, a context-specific perspective that considers the complexity of local, individual and group dynamics needs to be adopted.

Several years of research on the informal economy in West Africa give a perspective on the Sahel and Northern Mali and the following message for policymakers: invest in the informal sector.