2022 Burkina Faso Conflict Diagnostic
An early 2022 coup in Burkina Faso has manifested as the result of civil unrest related to the ongoing jihadist threat in the Greater Sahel region. Since 2014, militarization and jihadism have increased and the humanitarian crisis has worsened in the last year as the Burkinabés are being internally displaced from rural to urban Burkina Faso. This diagnostic asserts that within the next 6-9 months, the worst-case scenario involves an increase in terror attacks, growing militia ranks, a potential counter-coup, and aggravating economic and humanitarian crises. The best-case scenario would require improved socio-economic conditions and restoration of peace, order, and respecting the proposed electoral timeline of three years. The most likely scenario is that because of chronic underfunding of the crises, terror attacks persist, support for the military junta decreases and the proposed electoral timeline is delayed. The conflict does not seem to have reached its peak, and escalation is expected given that January displacement numbers were the second largest since the crisis broke out 3 years ago.