More people are joining terrorist groups in Africa, which draws questions on its reasons, said a new report by the UN's international development agency.
The report underscored the importance of economic factors as drivers of recruitment.
Meanwhile, experts expected recruitment to increase as the African governments and international powers fail to find successful approaches to reduce poverty, unemployment, and ethnic marginalization in the continent.
The report monitored a 57 percent decrease from the 2017 findings in the number of people who join extremist groups for religious reasons.
A significant increase of 92 percent of new recruits to extremist groups are joining for better livelihoods compared to the motivations of those interviewed in a previous report released in 2017, according to the UNDP report released on Tuesday.
“A striking 71 percent” of those who joined the extremist groups were affected by “human rights abuse, often conducted by state security forces”.
The report draws from interviews with nearly 2,200 different people in eight countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan.
More than 1,000 of those interviewees are former members of violent extremist groups.
At least 4,155 attacks across Africa were documented since 2017, said the report. In these attacks, 18,417 deaths were recorded in the continent with Somalia accounting for the largest number of fatalities.
The surge of extremism in Africa “threatens to reverse hard-won development gains for generations to come”, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.
“Security-driven counter-terrorism responses are often costly and minimally effective, yet investments in preventive approaches to violent extremism are woefully inadequate,” he added.
“The social contract between states and citizens must be reinvigorated to tackle root causes of violent extremism,” Steiner continued.
Terrorist groups massively exploit poverty, unemployment, and ethnic marginalization, and they have recruited thousands in Africa, according to Ahmed Sultan, an Egyptian expert specialized in extremist groups' affairs.
Sultan told Asharq Al-Awsat that the fragility of most African economies makes the continent a hotbed for terrorist groups especially as the economic conditions worsen as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war. He expected more recruitments.
Mohamed El Amine Ould Dah, an expert on African Sahel affairs, stated that the major powers are preoccupied with their geopolitical conflicts and have no interest in radically fighting terrorism in the continent because “this requires billions of dollars”.
Ould Dah told Asharq Al-Awsat that unemployment in the Sahel pushes thousands of youths to join terrorist groups. Other factors are oppression and ethnic marginalization practiced by the authorities.
