Los Angeles/DNA – Nations in Africa’s Sahel region can build more resilient institutions and foster long-term development by leveraging their natural resources more effectively, a recently published report focusing on Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Sudan says.

The report by the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) argues that the four countries should aim to transition away from relying exclusively on the extraction of natural resources. It attributes much of the challenges facing the four countries on unsustainable economic policies which focus on the export of raw materials.