Introduction: Understanding Security Sector Governance Dynamics in West Africa

First paragraph: If the post-cold war era brought new hope for development, security and democracy to the West African region, these hopes seem diminished in the first decade of the new Millennium. The burgeoning Nigerian economy may have shifted the economic centre of the African continent to the West African region, yet economic growth has not met the promise of a better future for a generation of young West Africans deprived of a sound education and relegated to a precarious existence in informal employment. While the pressures of frustrated development have not so far led to violent conflict on the scale seen in the 1990s and early 2000s, these tensions have still contributed to internal crises pitting insurgents, separatists and terrorists (as well as the forces of organized crime) against central state authority. Meanwhile the everyday security crises faced by populations as a result of rising crime and dysfunctional state security provision continue to hold back both the potential for economic development and the deepening of democracy.