SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

7 domains mapped · Code: NE

These are jurisdiction-specific research-progress records. They expose first moves, likely actors, and institutional infrastructure where mapped; they are not a claim that every country has a finished statutory memo for all 61 domains.

Canonical domain beta-W from Mining & Rare Earth Extraction. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Niger's uranium mining (Orano operations at Arlit) generates radioactive tailings in water-scarce Sahel. Environmental monitoring data makes W computable.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Oil & Gas Extraction. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Niger's Agadem oilfield and the export pipeline to the port of Sèmè in Benin promise foreign exchange, but the contracts with the China National Petroleum Corporation lock in revenue terms the public cannot see, and pipeline disputes with Benin already cut off flows in 2024. The opacity of production-sharing terms and the diversion of the resource rent away from Nigerien services are institutional, not geological, so they can be renegotiated and disclosed.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Child Labor in Global Supply Chains. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:More than a third of Nigerien children are estimated to work, many in artisanal gold mining around Agadez and in subsistence farming, which strips them of schooling and locks families into the next generation of poverty. Because the cost is borne by children with no voice in the labor market and the practice is sustained by weak enforcement rather than any technical necessity, targeted school incentives and supply-chain rules can address it.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Agadez is the main transit hub for migration across the Sahara toward Libya, and the same routes carry trafficked women and forced laborers whose exploitation enriches smuggling networks while undermining state authority and the safety of communities along the route. The trade depends on corrupt facilitation and the absence of legal livelihoods for former transporters, both of which are institutional levers Niger and its partners can pull.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Topsoil Erosion. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Roughly three quarters of Niger's land is desert and the cultivable margin is losing soil to wind erosion and overgrazing, which directly threatens the food security of a population that is overwhelmingly agro-pastoral. The loss is driven by short-horizon land use rather than irreversible chemistry, and Nigerien farmers have already demonstrated reversal through farmer-managed natural regeneration that re-greened large areas of the Zinder and Maradi regions.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Sovereign Debt & Intergenerational Extraction. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:After the 2023 coup, ECOWAS sanctions and a regional market freeze pushed Niger into default on WAEMU-area bonds, and debt service now competes directly with spending on schools, clinics, and the food-deficit response. Because the debt is governed by negotiable contracts and multilateral programs rather than physical scarcity, restructuring and concessional refinancing can free fiscal space for the system.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Conflict Minerals and Blood Diamonds. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Artisanal gold mined in northern Niger and across the Sahel is smuggled and laundered through regional hubs, funding armed groups operating in the tri-border zone while almost none of the value reaches the state or miners. The leakage is a problem of untraceable sales channels and weak formalization, both of which can be addressed by routing gold through certified, licensed buying centers.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

© 2026 Erik Postnieks · Independent Researcher · Salt Lake City