State fragility contributes to insecurity in Africa

The coup in Burkina Faso is the second in the country within a space of eight months. This comes after successes of military coups in Mali, Guinea (Conakry), Sudan and Chad in the past two years.

The Sahel region, where these coups have taken place, is a politically unstable region in the continent characterised by a contagious disease of state fragility. In fact many Sub-Saharan African countries are in situations which can be described as ‘fragile’ due to a variety of factors, including poor governance, weak institutions and lack of social cohesion.