With the support of the state and the European Union, the archipelago can become a real logistical, training, commercial and humanitarian centre for our neighbouring countries.
The Sahel - that vast strip of land that stretches from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, encompassing countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad - today represents one of the most complex and urgent challenges for Africa, Europe and, in particular, for the Canary Islands. Political instability, climate crisis, the spread of jihadism, institutional collapse, chronic poverty and forced displacements leading to migration by sea make up a scenario that is neither distant nor alien, but deeply connected to our island reality. As you are well aware, we have written about this on countless occasions in recent years.
In addition, recently, at the invitation of various organisations such as the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País and the Club Náutico de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, I gave a conference entitled 'The Canary Islands must look towards the Sahel'. In them I have tried to synthesise all the articles I have written on the region, which will form part of a book that is already in the publication phase.
In this context, the President of the Canary Islands Government, Fernando Clavijo, this week publicly proposed that our archipelago take on a leading role in European policy towards the Sahel. What the president is proposing is not only pertinent, but essential.
At Casa África we have been advocating for years that the Sahel should occupy a central place in Spanish and European foreign action. We have promoted seminars, publications, diplomatic forums and strategic analyses that insist on a key idea: it is time to overcome the exclusively securitarian approach that has guided the relationship with this region, and to commit to comprehensive strategies based on human development, good governance, local diplomacy and active listening to the communities.
Because of its geographical location, its institutional experience and its status as an Outermost Region recognised by the European Union, the Canary Islands have a historic opportunity to act as an Atlantic platform between Europe and Africa. Our insularity, our proximity to the continent and our Europeanness - as the historian Dagauh Komenan rightly explains - are geopolitical assets of the first order. We are not a border, but a bridge.
The European Commission has repeatedly recognised the value of the ORs as "European policy laboratories" in complex contexts and as "bridges to the world". In the case of the Canary Islands, this vocation goes hand in hand with the action of institutions such as Casa África, and the strategic commitments and African approaches of both the Spanish and Canary Islands governments, the island councils, various town councils and even the university and business sectors.
Last December was the moment chosen by the President of the Spanish Government to present, in Moncloa, the new Spain-Africa Strategy 2025-2028. I had the opportunity to attend the presentation of this document, which aims to guide Spain's action on the African continent based on the principle of partnership and mutual respect and benefit, listening to African partners and with an emphasis on multilateralism.
At the beginning of this year, the regional executive announced in Casa África a Canary Islands Strategy for Africa (ECA), a declaration of intentions that is gradually taking shape to strengthen political and economic cooperation with neighbouring African countries, position the Canary Islands as a logistical, training, scientific and humanitarian centre for initiatives aimed at the continent, promote the attraction of African talent and boost academic and business mobility between the two shores and, above all, strengthen the role of the archipelago in international forums related to migration, climate change, renewable energies, food security and public health. Last Tuesday we held a working meeting in Tenerife to make progress on concrete proposals to make this a reality. For the time being, the first conversations show a hopeful direction, in line with what we have been demanding for several years, especially on the Sahel.
Canary Island programmes such as Tierra Firme, which has enabled the training and employment of hundreds of young Senegalese thanks to Canary Island collaboration, are already in operation, demonstrating that there are viable and effective formulas for transformative cooperation. It is not a matter of charity, but of co-responsibility: of offering dignified alternatives that generate roots and a future at home.
The Canary Islands have sufficient knowledge and potential to enable the State to implement a real policy towards the Sahel from the archipelago: positioning the Islands towards our African neighbours as a logistical, humanitarian, scientific, training and commercial centre (the step taken by the Las Palmas Chamber of Commerce with the creation of the AFRICO network of chambers is a perfect and positive example). All of this could and should provide important support for the necessary progress in the socio-political development of the Sahel, which is currently threatened by excessive violence.
I have always been convinced that we can transform the Canary Islands into a laboratory of innovative policies that promote inclusive development, peer-to-peer dialogue and academic, professional and business mobility between the two sides of the Atlantic.
Concrete proposals that could give substance to this vision include the following:
- The empowerment of Casa África as a kind of Atlantic centre for Africa and the Sahel, improving its resources so that it can act as a node for analysis, training and cooperation between African, European and Canary Islands actors. The African ambassadors of the region, at the last Diplomatic Council held in Madrid a few weeks ago, asked us for initiatives in precisely this sense.
- The promotion of youth entrepreneurship and social innovation, through alliances with the islands' technological and business ecosystem, in key sectors such as agro-ecology, renewable energies, water management and sustainable tourism.
- The training of African human capital in the Canary Islands, through agreements with regional organisations such as ECOWAS, aimed at training new African elites in strategic areas such as public health, civil protection, cybersecurity and governance. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs already has lines of collaboration with ECOWAS in this regard, but it would be an intelligent step to use the Canary Islands as a base for this training in collaboration with our universities.
- Strengthening local and municipal diplomacy, with cooperation networks between city councils, town councils and African counterparts to work on issues such as climate change and early warnings of adverse weather phenomena, food security, citizen participation, urban planning and human mobility.
- The institutionalisation of a Canary Islands-Sahel Atlantic Forum, as a stable space for political, economic, social and academic dialogue, to make this region visible on the European agenda and promote shared solutions. This proposal, for example, was launched a few years ago by a think tank in the region, the Timbuktu Institute, a benchmark in the study of the Sahel.
These initiatives are not mere aspirations. They respond to an urgency: the migratory flows reaching our shores are visible symptoms of a region mired in a spiral of violence and uncertainty. The Atlantic route has become the most active and lethal route to Europe, and the Sahel accounts for more than 50% of the world's terrorist deaths, according to the 2024 Global Terrorism Index. We cannot wait for the crisis to hit us harder before we act.
It is also a question of equity. As an outermost region, the Canary Islands already perform a de facto migration "containment" function, without receiving proportionally the attention or the funds that this responsibility demands. Professor Komenan's thesis explains it clearly: our islands must be recognised as a strategic territory and as a space for experimentation for new cooperation policies, not just as a containment wall.
Faced with an international context in which Europe is turning its gaze towards the East and relegating the South, the Canary Islands must claim a firm, committed and useful external vocation. As the journalist José Naranjo has said on many occasions, it is time for us to stop being a frontier and become a platform, a connection, an ear. It is not a question of taking over other people's competencies, but of exercising intelligent and supportive leadership, which complements the State's foreign policy and contributes to a fairer and more sustainable relationship with our African neighbours.
The Sahel is not just a challenge. It is also an opportunity. A plural, rich and fascinating region where the future of the African continent is at stake, and with it, that of the world. The Canary Islands have much to contribute to this shared future. And the time to do so is now.