Togo, a country of a little more than 8.5 million people, experienced 14 attacks in 2023, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. These incidents killed a total of 66 people, demonstrating the continuing ability of extremist groups to carry out lethal strikes. Kidnappings by extremist groups in Benin’s north have also surged.

Despite sizable interventions by regional states, the current approach to countering violent extremism in coastal West Africa is falling short. If the approach continues without addressing the root causes of extremism—including the systemic exclusion of marginalized ethnic groups, most prominently the Fulani, from society—the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Benin and Togo’s larger neighbor, Ghana, has undertaken extensive measures to prevent such attacks from being carried out, including seeking greater assistance from international partners. This includes direct assistance, such as a biliteral support package of 20 million euros ($22 million) from the European Union, and joining various conflict prevention initiatives, such as the United States’ Global Fragility Act. But the presence and reach of extremist organizations with links to both al Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to grow across the north of the country, and these groups have recruited hundreds of Ghanaians to fight in regional conflicts and beyond, including as suicide bombers.

The growth of extremism in the three coastal West African countries comes despite extensive efforts to prevent the spillover of extremist groups from the Sahel into these three nations’ northern regions. All three are members of the Accra Initiative a regional alliance founded in 2017 with the explicit aim of preventing the spread of extremism. The initiative has seen extensive intelligence-sharing, cross-border operations, and plans for the eventual establishment of a 10,000-strong task force based in Ghana.

Beyond regional security cooperation, each country has developed its own strategy to counter violent extremism and invested significant security resources. It established an inter-ministerial committee to support coordination and gather intelligence. Benin has deployed more than 3,000 soldiers in several of its own northern districts. In addition, the country increased its defense budget by 35 percent in 2021, and it has received direct assistance from a wide range of international partners, including the European Union and Rwanda.

All of these efforts taken to prevent the spillover of extremist activities occurred alongside heavily securitized state responses aimed at preventing the solidification of extremist groups within their existing borders. In fact, Ghana, Togo, and Benin began implementing internal security measures to prevent these groups from gaining a foothold or when extremist groups had only a minuscule presence in forested areas in the north of their countries.

But instead of preventing the growth of extremist groups, the militarized state response brought about the opposite result. Togo and Benin have seen fatalities increase each year, and Ghana has seen an increase in reported extremist operations within its borders. Attacks are occurring just north of the Ghanaian border, in Burkina Faso, with insurgents regularly traversing the border. It is now clear that this approach has not yielded the desired outcome.

One obstacle to a successful counterterrorism policy is that the governments of the three countries see the emergence of extremism as an import from abroad, and therefore one to be addressed through increased border security and similar measures. Their policies primarily frame the issue as an external threat, blaming extremism on Sahel states, oftentimes saying so alongside xenophobic rhetoric targeting already marginalized Fulani populations, and local media has largely been doing the same.

Although the political dynamics differ greatly in these three countries, the security threat developing in their northern regions is similar. Ghana has been a strong multiparty democracy since 1992, Togo has largely been a partly dynastic dictatorship since 1967, recently changing its constitution to abolish direct elections, and Benin has rapidly become more authoritarian following the election of Talon in 2016. However, in each country, the majority of the population and most of the wealth are concentrated in the coastal south; in all three countries, the northern region lags far behind in all development indicators.

Similarly, Togo and Benin have alienated their northern populations by restricting seasonal pastoralism, with Benin seeking to confine pastoralists to designated zones. These restrictions have brought such communities into greater conflict with farming communities, led to clashes with security forces, and pushed pastoralists further outside of the formalized economy. Doing so without adequate consultations or agreement from pastoralists only exacerbates the divisions between these populations and the state, which could render some segments of that population vulnerable to recruitment.

Togo declared a state of emergency in its northernmost region, Savanes, in 2022 and has extended it multiple times; it is now not set to expire until March 2025. This declaration gives security forces virtually unrestricted authority to conduct military operations and detain civilians, and human rights group Amnesty International has reported that it has been used to arbitrarily detain people on an ethnic basis. The state of emergency also gives authorities powers to prohibit movement and ban public assembly, which is notable, as Savanes was the site of protests concerning regional marginalization in 2021, which were brutally crushed.

Ironically, this has prevented further citizen advocacy for government improvements to the conditions that have made Savanes fertile ground for extremist recruitment, pushing the population further away from the state. In Benin, access to several districts in the north is limited. The country has also closed access to two national parks in the region due to security threats and outsourced their management, destroying previous economic lifelines for surrounding communities. This has led to destitution as well as reports of an increase in trafficking and recruitment by extremist groups.

The current responses of these three governments to the rise of extremism fail to address the problem and, in some ways, exacerbate it.

The rise of extremist groups in coastal West Africa has not occurred in a vacuum. While prospects for ending the raging conflicts in the Sahel are limited, the neighboring coastal countries of Ghana, Benin, and Togo can work to reduce threats of extremism within their own borders. Unless the militarized approach is replaced with one with an emphasis on mitigating the social exclusion that has rendered communities vulnerable to violent extremist recruitment, the security situation will continue to deteriorate.