The Sahel's rapidly growing youth population, disrupted education, weak livelihoods and heavy-handed counterinsurgency efforts will likely sustain jihadists' ability to exploit grievances, recruit personnel and broaden support networks, limiting the durability of military gains. Over the past decade, al Qaeda-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, and Islamic State Sahel Province, or ISSP, have demonstrated a sustained ability to exploit young, economically marginalized populations across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Both groups have drawn heavily from communities affected by ethnic marginalization, unemployment, displacement, climate stress and weak state presence, while increasingly exploiting the economic disruption they generate themselves; recruitment has consequently become less dependent on ideological persuasion and more closely linked to survival, protection and economic opportunity.