Life on the Line: What West Africa’s Borderlands Mean for Investors in Frontier Markets and Emerging Economies

As traditional development responses shrink with USAID’s dismantling and reduced European donor engagement, the role of the private sector in navigating fragile environments becomes even more critical. My recent research - two years in the making - can help businesses anticipate risks, engage effectively, and operate responsibly in West Africa’s borderlands. 

“Life on the Line: Stability and Livelihood Challenges in the Borderlands of Coastal West Africa” - co-authored with the Clingendael Institute, and produced under the UK’s XCEPT research program, shares hard-earned insights critical to business success in the region. While the study was originally designed for a policy audience, its findings carry direct relevance for the private sector. 

The key finding? When local economies weaken and livelihoods collapse, people often turn to illicit and informal activities: whether it’s smuggling, organized crime, artisanal mining, or even recruitment by jihadist groups. For mining companies in particular, this report reveals how instability affects not just security, but the socio-economic fabric that underpins community relations and a company’s license to operate. Many mining projects sit near or within these frontier zones, where jihadist activity, border closures, and disrupted trade routes can quickly inflame local grievances. The spread of extremist or insurgent influence into mining frontiers can reposition what may have seemed like purely commercial zones into strategic security arenas. 

Fraying Lines, Fragile Livelihoods

In the borderlands of Coastal West Africa and the Sahel formal borders often fail to contain the lived realities of communities that cross them regularly. For these communities, trade, kinship networks, market exchanges, and social ties ebb and flow across borders, forming a vibrant socio-economic ecosystem that enables survival. Yet, this cross-border lifeline is under mounting threat, jeopardized by the dual pressures of violence from armed groups linked to organized crime and jihadism, and heavy-handed governmental responses to shutter borders and local economies as a security response.

The study - which unfolds across 4 geographic zones in 5 West Africa countries - underscores how illicit trade in otherwise ordinary goods, depending on the borders being crossed, feeds into international markets. Nowhere is this clearer than in gold, where the “informal gold gap” is striking, signaling both risk and untapped value. For example, while Burkina Faso’s artisanal miners produce an estimated 34 tonnes annually, only about 300 kg is legally exported, highlighting the deeply entrenched illicit economy around this trade. In Ghana, by contrast, “galamsey” (illegal artisanal mining) employs more than one million people and accounts for roughly 35% of national gold production. This vast and opaque informal economy represents a hidden reservoir of value, but one burdened with environmental damage, reputational exposure, and security concerns. 

This matters because, in unstable border zones, mining operations (even legal ones) can become targets or footholds for illicit actors. Disruption, extortion, or infiltration are real risks for commercial centers and industrial mines. 

Ground Realities – Trade, Economics, and Everyday Survival

The research emphasizes border communities’ reliance on cross-border mobility and informal trade due to limited ties with major urban centers. Remote markets often function in economic isolation from larger cities and ports, which helps explain why disruptions in these hubs can spark wider instability. Local economies are sustained by itinerant traders, pastoralists, and transporters operating through long-standing informal networks. At the same time, these border zones are critical transit corridors for goods like fuel, fertilizer, cement, agricultural products, and pharmaceuticals - items that directly intersect with mining operations, whether as inputs, supply chain dependencies, or commodities moving through the same routes.

For example, in January 2024, jihadists ambushed and burned onion trucks traveling from Niger into Ghana, cutting off access to a staple food and devastating traders in the Paga border region. More recently, jihadists in Mali interdicted fuel trucks crossing the Sahel, to slow security patrols. These disruptions have direct implications for private companies - particularly mining companies - by raising input costs to inflaming local grievances. 

Instability in these borderlands therefore extends well beyond remote populations, directly shaping regional trade, constraining logistics, and amplifying operational risks for extractive industries. These disruptions to local economies directly cut household incomes dependent on cross-border trade, and accelerate the growth of illicit networks as formal channels close. For companies, this isn’t a peripheral concern: weakened border communities erode fragile state control, heightening risks to infrastructure, logistics, supply chains, and workforce stability.

The lesson for extractive and infrastructure companies is stark: fragility begets fragility. Heavy-handed security fixes may suppress symptoms short term but risk undermining the local livelihood base that can buffer communities against violent or criminal recruitment. Miscalibrated interventions can create conditions in which communities see illicit pathways, not formal opportunity, as the only alternative. In frontier settings, sustainable operations depend as much on safeguarding economic resilience as on physical security.

Why It Matters 

For commercial actors operating in frontier regions this report underscores a critical point: engaging with communities directly is critical for success. Community tensions in the borderlands between Burkina Faso and Ghana, as seen recently in Hamile, can quickly escalate and disrupt international supply chains and trade. 

For mining companies, effective risk mitigation goes beyond physical site security. It requires practical measures that reduce friction with surrounding communities, such as hiring locals and maintaining open lines of communication to address local concerns before they escalate. Security strategies must also be flexible, protecting assets and personnel while avoiding disruptions to the lifestyles that the local population is accustomed to. This balanced approach safeguards operations, lowers the risk of community-driven disruptions, and strengthens a company’s long-term license to operate.

The Utility of this Research for Private Sector

Context matters when operating in risky environments. This study underscores how shrinking livelihoods and restricted mobility can fuel community grievances, particularly when companies are perceived as extracting value without contributing to resilience, or when industrial mines displace artisanal miners and disrupt informal economies and smuggling networks. For operators, recognizing these dynamics is essential: thus the research and knowledge of these contexts informs effective community engagement, helps anticipate disruptions to supply chains and workforce movement, and highlights the need to pair security with investments in stabilization and trust-building.

In short, the research offers a roadmap for responsible, sustainable operations in fragile environments, reducing both reputational and operational risks while strengthening long-term license to operate.