Sahel Plus Resilience Platform

We are a group of ten National Societies coordinating on matters of mutual interest.

Our network comprises the National Societies of Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, as well as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as observer members.

We come together every year for the Sahel+ group’s General Assembly in order to elect a new leadership, except for the post of Secretary, which is permanently devolved to the Presidency of the Senegalese Red Cross.

We have also elected a Youth Representative to make the voices of our youth colleagues and volunteers heard at the Red Cross and Red Crescent Pan African Conference and IFRC General Assembly Youth Forums.

Throughout the years, the Sahel+ group has established several initiatives on key issues of interest for the RC/RC Movement such as a Food security platform in 2016 and a Sahel+ Migration network in 2017, and it has acted as a key vehicle for discussing IFRC and ICRC led initiatives and joint programming in the region and for our members.

“By doing so, the group’s main objective is to reduce the vulnerabilities of migrants and displaced persons in the Sahel region, mitigate the risks they are exposed to, address discrimination, and facilitate their inclusion and access to services – in view of building the resilience of all concerned persons and communities”

The Sahel+ Migration Technical Group also seeks to engage with other stakeholders and speak with one voice in regional and global platforms. Our members have presented their common perspective on migration and displacement during webinar on cross-border mobility and climate change on the side of the 45th session of the Human Rights Council (on 24 September 2020), at the Red Cross and Red Crescent Virtual Climate Summit (from 9-10 September 2020), at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Quito, Ecuador (from 19-24 January 2020), and at the first Global Refugee Forum held in Geneva (from 16-18 December 2019).

The group also has representatives in the RC/RC Movement’s Global Migration Task Force.