Major infrastructure projects – roads, bridges, industrial mines, pipelines, dams, ports – occupy a central place in development strategies in West Africa. In areas affected by jihadist insurgencies, intercommunal violence or transnational trafficking, one question keeps recurring: have these infrastructures become priority targets for non-state armed groups?
Analysis of the available data shows a more nuanced reality. Infrastructure is indeed targeted, but in different ways depending on the country, the armed actors and the type of project. Attacks rarely follow a single logic; they combine military, economic, political and symbolic considerations.
Why infrastructure is strategic for armed actors
In conflict settings, infrastructure shapes the balance of power. It is at once:
- a lever of territorial control: roads, bridges and logistics routes determine the movements of armed forces, humanitarian convoys and trade flows;
- a source of rent: mining sites, transport corridors and informal toll points feed the finances of armed groups and criminal networks;
- a symbol of the presence of the state or of elites: public works sites, company logistics bases or workers’ camps are associated with the central state, foreign partners or large companies;
- a pressure point on populations: by disrupting access to markets, services or electricity, some groups strengthen their capacity for coercion or negotiation.
In this context, the question is not only whether infrastructure projects are targeted, but why, when and how they are, and what this reveals about local dynamics of violence.
Contrasting trends by type of infrastructure
Roads, bridges and logistics corridors
Roads are among the infrastructures most regularly affected by violence in West Africa. Data from ACLED and several think tanks (ISS Africa, Clingendael) show a concentration of attacks and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along strategic roads in the central Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) and, increasingly, in certain areas of northern Benin, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire.
In most cases, roads are not targeted as “development projects”, but as vectors of state projection:
- IEDs primarily target military or mixed convoys (armed forces, gendarmerie, sometimes private escorts);
- attacks on buses, lorries or civilian vehicles often occur on roads that are already militarised or under contested control;
- illegal roadblocks are used to levy taxes, control population movements and filter trade flows.
Bridges and engineering structures are sometimes destroyed or damaged, not for their own value, but to isolate an area, complicate military operations or prevent a locality from being supplied. This destruction has lasting effects on local economies and access to services, even when it was not initially the “core” of the target.
Industrial and artisanal mining sites
Industrial mines (gold, uranium, bauxite, manganese, etc.) and artisanal sites are points of high concentration of economic value. Research by the International Crisis Group, Small Arms Survey and several academic studies shows that:
- artisanal sites are frequently integrated into informal taxation systems run by armed groups, militias or criminal networks;
- industrial mines are less often attacked directly than media narratives suggest, but they are exposed to indirect risks: insecurity on access roads, kidnapping of staff, occasional sabotage of peripheral equipment;
- land and community conflicts around mining sites can be exploited by armed groups presenting themselves as protectors or arbiters.
Attacks on mining company convoys, workers’ camps or logistics contractors show that these projects can be perceived as targets of high symbolic and economic value. However, armed groups often favour capturing rents (extortion, protection, taxation) over the outright destruction of the asset.
Dams, power grids and pipelines
Hydroelectric dams, power lines and pipelines are targeted less frequently than roads or markets, but their vulnerability is attracting growing attention. In several countries in the region, incidents have shown that:
- high-voltage lines can be sabotaged to disrupt supply to an area, create a psychological effect or punish a community seen as close to the state;
- pipelines and fuel depots are mainly exposed to siphoning and organised crime, sometimes with the complicity of state or para-state actors;
- dams are better protected, but their surroundings (access roads, guard posts, workers’ camps) remain vulnerable.
For the time being, large-scale attacks aimed at causing technological disasters (dam failure, major pipeline explosion) remain rare in the region. The behaviour observed is more a matter of targeted pressure and rent-seeking than of a logic of systematic destruction of critical infrastructure.
Ports, logistics hubs and urban areas
In the coastal countries of the Gulf of Guinea, major ports and logistics hubs are at the heart of national economies. Threats there take different forms:
- organised crime around containers, fuel, illegal fishing and sometimes drug trafficking;
- risks of corruption and institutional capture, rather than spectacular attacks;
- occasional terrorist threats, considered more in scenarios of jihadist groups projecting southwards than observed on a large scale in the statistics.
Urban areas concentrate multiple infrastructures (transport, energy, telecoms) as well as the headquarters of political and economic institutions. Attacks there remain relatively limited compared with rural and peripheral areas, but episodes of political violence, social protest or rioting can affect strategic installations, sometimes opportunistically rather than in a planned way.
Targeting logics: beyond “development under attack”
The idea that armed groups systematically seek to “prevent development” by attacking major projects is reductive. Recent research highlights several intertwined logics.
Military logic and territorial control
Infrastructure consists of unavoidable chokepoints. Armed groups often target it in order to:
- hamper the operations of state forces and their allies;
- impose no-go zones for movement;
- force the authorities to negotiate local arrangements, including tacit non-aggression.
From this perspective, infrastructure is a military object before it is a symbol of development.
Economic and rent logic
Major projects generate financial flows, jobs, subcontracting agreements and opportunities for corruption. Various actors – armed groups, militias, politico-economic networks – may seek to:
- tax the flows (goods, fuel, gold, livestock) passing through the infrastructure;
- capture part of the contracts linked to the projects (security, transport, logistics, supply);
- influence the award of contracts or compensation to local communities.
Violence may then be part of conflicts over access to rent, rather than of a desire to destroy the infrastructure itself.
Political and symbolic logic
Major projects are often presented by governments as showcases of their action. Armed groups, but also certain marginalised local actors, may perceive them as:
- symbols of a distant state, seen as unjust or predatory;
- instruments of land dispossession or of the marginalisation of certain communities;
- manifestations of alliances with foreign powers or economic elites.
In this context, attacking or disrupting an infrastructure project makes it possible to send a political message: to challenge the legitimacy of the state, its partners or local elites, and to show the capacity to influence the course of events.
Local logic: land conflicts, pastoralism and community tensions
Many projects are rolled out in areas marked by pre-existing tensions: conflicts between farmers and herders, rivalries between chieftaincies, land disputes, frustrations over employment. Field research shows that:
- self-defence groups or militias may attack work sites or workers to exert pressure in local conflicts;
- jihadist groups may graft themselves onto these tensions, presenting themselves as protectors of populations who feel wronged by a project;
- acts of sabotage or intimidation may be linked to negotiations over compensation, access to water or grazing land.
In these cases, infrastructure becomes a flashpoint for social and land conflicts, rather than a purely ideological target.
Risks that differ by national and local context
West Africa is not a homogeneous bloc. The risks to infrastructure vary considerably according to:
- the level of state presence and the extent to which it is contested;
- the nature of the armed groups (jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda or Islamic State, community militias, criminal groups, rural banditry, etc.);
- the density of the economic fabric and the value of the flows passing through the infrastructure;
- local dynamics of governance, corruption and mediation.
In areas of open conflict (parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria), infrastructure is often caught in a space of permanent confrontation. In the relatively more stable coastal countries, the risks are more linked to organised crime, occasional social tensions and attempts by armed groups to project themselves from the Sahelian areas.
Implications for public and private actors and communities
For states, companies, NGOs and local communities, the central question is not only whether major projects are targeted, but under what conditions they become likely targets. Several implications emerge.
Integrating security from the project design stage
Recent experience shows the importance of integrating:
- a detailed analysis of the armed actors present in the area or likely to move into it;
- an understanding of land tensions, local economic circuits and power rivalries;
- structured dialogue with local communities and their customary and religious representatives, but also with often marginalised groups (young people, women, migrants, transhumant herders).
This approach is not only a matter of project management, but of a political and social reading of the territories concerned.
Monitoring weak signals
Several signals may herald a rising risk of targeting:
- an increase in minor incidents (intimidation, theft, illegal roadblocks) around work sites;
- increasingly hostile rhetoric about the project in certain communities or segments of the youth;
- attempts by certain armed or politico-economic actors to position themselves as unavoidable intermediaries;
- gradual militarisation of the project’s environment, which can reinforce the perception of alignment with the state or certain local camps.
Early identification of these signals often makes it possible to adjust the ways of being present, negotiating and communicating before the infrastructure becomes a direct target.
A nuanced conclusion: infrastructure targeted, but not always as such
Major infrastructure projects in West Africa are indeed exposed to risks of attack, sabotage, extortion or blockade. However, they are not systematically targeted because they are development projects. They are caught up in broader dynamics:
- armed conflicts in which roads, bridges and corridors are military stakes;
- war and predatory economies in which infrastructure serves as a basis for rent;
- political and social tensions in which major projects symbolise contested power relations;
- local conflicts in which infrastructure crystallises land, identity or generational frustrations.
Understanding whether major infrastructure projects are targeted therefore requires going beyond a purely security-based or technical view and adopting a systemic reading of the territories, actors and interests at stake. Only on this condition can public policies, corporate strategies and development initiatives reduce risks without fuelling the very conflict dynamics they seek to mitigate.