New Journal Article and Blog Post on Violence and Roads in West Africa

Militants take advantage of roads in various ways, including as transport corridors, targets, and choke points.

Olivier Walther, Steven Radil, and I have a new article out in African Security Review, titled “Political Violence and Transport Infrastructure in West Africa.” Here is the abstract:

This article analyses the patterns of violence produced by the competition for the control of transport infrastructure between state and non-state actors in West Africa from 2000 to 2024. Using disaggregated road and conflict data from the Global Roads Inventory Project (GRIP) and Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, the paper first shows that the road infrastructure attracts a disproportionate share of violent events. The paper then shows that transport-related violence is becoming less concentrated over time, and that specific road segments are repeatedly targeted, particularly in the Central Sahel, Lake Chad basin, and western Cameroon. These findings suggest that the proximity of violent events to the road network mirrors the temporal evolution of local insurgencies. The proportion of events near roads increases in the early stages of the insurgency, before declining as insurgent expand to more remote and rural regions. The duality of the transport infrastructure, as both a facilitator and target of violence, has put government forces at a disadvantage. Regular forces are heavily constrained by the sparsity and poor conditions of the road network, which makes them vulnerable to attacks without necessarily allowing them to project their military power over long distances.

The article is an outgrowth of research done for the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development report “Roads and Conflict in West Africa,” to which I also made a modest contribution.

Olivier and Steven also generously wrote up our findings in a blog post for The Conversation (I was traveling and couldn’t contribute to the blog post - I’m grateful to them for carrying me along as a co-author!). Here’s an excerpt:

The results of our study show that 65% of all the attacks, explosions, and violence against civilians recorded between 2000 and 2024 were located within one kilometre of a road…

We think the reason for this pattern is that there is fierce competition between state and non-state actors for access to and use of roads.

Governments need well-developed road networks for a host of reasons, including the ability to govern, enabling economic activity, and security. Roads enable military mobility and reduce potential safe havens for insurgents in remote regions.

Insurgent groups also see transport networks as prime targets. They create opportunities to blockade cities, ambush convoys, kidnap travellers, employ landmines, and destroy key infrastructure.

The findings, we hope, will contribute to a deeper understanding of how militants move and operate.