Chad in its Regional Environment: Amidst Political Alliances and Ad Hoc Military Coalitions

Chad plays a strategic role in regional cooperation in Central Africa. Since 2013, Ahmad Allam-Mi has been Secretary General of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the country participates in the Multinational Joint Task Force, established in the framework of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) in 2014. Chad also plays a key military role in West Africa and the Sahel, notably in Mali. In 2015, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, former Chadian Foreign Minister (1997-2003), was appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Mali and head of the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). The country is also a founding member of the G5-Sahel, launched in 2014, which deployed a joint force across the Sahel in 2017. Chadian diplomacy has become more active and influential in recent years. After gaining a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2014 and 2015, Chad took over the leadership of the African Union Commission, with Moussa Faki’s appointment as its Chairperson in 2017. In 2019, Chad signed an agreement with the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CENSAD) to transfer the organisation’s headquarters from Tripoli to N’Djamena in a bid to revitalise the regional economic community. This raises the question of the factors that have guided Chad’s decision to participate in the deployment of such coalitions. The main focus of this study is to analyse and clarify the factors and the consequences of Chad’s strategies on developments in regional cooperation.