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The Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) published a new report, “Civil Society Perspectives: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in West Africa,” focusing on the Lake Chad Basin and the Gulf of Guinea regions.
The report draws on findings from two virtual round-table discussions held in August 2025, convened by CTED as part of its ongoing commitment to whole-of-society approaches to counter-terrorism. More than 50 representatives of civil society organizations, Global Research Network partners, technical experts and practitioners participated across English- and French-language sessions.
Participants described a security environment that is worsening across the region, with groups such as Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and Boko Haram expanding their operations and exploiting weak governance, porous borders and socioeconomic grievances. A growing nexus between terrorism and organized crime – including arms smuggling, drugs trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and illegal mining – was identified as a key driver of instability. Participants also flagged the growing use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and social media by terrorist groups for surveillance, propaganda and recruitment.
Civil society participants highlighted a range of underlying factors, including youth unemployment, poverty, ethnic and religious discrimination, forced displacement, and environmental degradation.
The report underscores the critical but often underutilized role of local actors, including women leaders and community organizations, in prevention and resilience-building. Participants called for greater inclusion of civil society in the design and implementation of national and regional counter-terrorism strategies, and warned against over-securitized approaches that risk undermining human rights and eroding community trust. The report also includes lessons learned, good practices, and concrete recommendations from civil society participants to complement Member States’ responses in line with Security Council resolution 2810 (2025).
Between 2020-2025, CTED, on behalf of the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee, has conducted assessment visits to several Member States in Africa, including the following in West Africa: Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mauritania, and Nigeria.
To further highlight the threats of terrorism and counter-terrorism challenges in West Africa, CTED organized a technical meeting on West Africa for Member States in September 2025. The preliminary findings from this report were shared at the technical meeting. The central themes were the threat landscape in the region, evolving technology exploited by terrorist groups, the proliferation of propaganda on social media, socioeconomic drivers of instability, potentially increasing radicalization to violence in the region, and the lack of trust between communities and local government authorities.
Read the full report here.
Additional reports about Civil Society Perspectives:
- Civil Society Perspectives: National and Regional Counter-Terrorism Strategies
- Civil Society Perspectives: Advancing Accountability for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Linked to Terrorism
- Civil Society Perspectives: Engagement in Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism in South-East Europe
- Civil Society Perspectives: ISIL in Africa – Key Trends and Developments