On March 22, Aude Darnal participated in a panel discussion on the future of the Sahel and Western military assistance in Africa. She advocated for reforming US security sector assistance, a redirection of funding from DoD to DoS, and greater emphasis on supporting locally-led long-term security sector governance and civilian-led initiatives aiming to prevent violent conflict.
“If we go back to the past two years or past decades, there are a number of coup leaders that had been trained by US military forces. This is not to say that military assistance directly favors coups, but because of the body of evidence and literature, it deserves more scrutiny when assessing the efficiency and adequacy of the security sector programs.” Darnal argued that multiple coup leaders were trained via the United States, despite US security sector assistance programs claiming to promote human rights and civilian oversight of military institutions, showing the severe limitations of military assistance.
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