The UN has hired mild-mannered former European Commission and Italian leader Romano Prodi to help pacify west Africa.
UN chief Ban Ki Moon and President Francois Hollande of France, a former colonial power in the region, unveiled Prodi's appointment as UN special envoy for the Sahel on Tuesday (9 October).
They said he will co-ordinate a mixed bag of international projects out of a UN office in Italy.
The Sahel covers Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and parts of Sudan, Camer...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.