Niger Coup & West Africa

Host Jamie McGoldrick speaks with Hannah Rae Armstrong, a writer and policy advisor with over a decade of field based experience in North Africa and the Sahel. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Le Monde. Jamie and Hannah spoke in late August about the coup in Niger and its impact on the region. Hannah does a great job of explaining the different parties involved in the coup, and she details what makes this coup different from other ones in west Africa. She’s critical of the role France has played, saying they’ve made the situation worse with their rhetoric. There’s also a discussion about the impact new sanctions will have on people in Niger, a country which the United Nations Human Index Development ranks as one of the poorest in the world. Finally, Hannah gives her perspective on what could come next in Niger with tension high in the region.