We wish to acknowledge the work of the research assistants and translators whose help made this report possible, including Adam Abubakar Abdulkarim, Mehdi Labzaé, and several others – from Chad, Sudan, Niger, Ethiopia and Eritrea – who prefer to remain anonymous, for security reasons.

This report is part of Clingendael’s Sahel Research Programme that focuses its analysis on the hybridity of local governance in the Sahel and Libya. A more extensive description of this research programme, as well as its outputs to date, is available at: Clingendael Sahel Research Programme.