This policy paper examines the challenges of conflict prevention and sustaining peace in West Africa and the Sahel. It considers the role of weak or failed public service delivery as a source of conflict in this wider region. It argues that weak service delivery results from factors within and beyond any government’s capacity to handle while emphasizing that weak service delivery results from the intersection of six different dynamics at a particular juncture in the region’s historical development. The dynamics are intertwined and must be addressed holistically if efforts geared at conflict prevention and resolution are to be meaningful. Governments must redistribute national resources to address widening inequalities and confront corruption, while international partners should create benign economic conditions enabling West African and Sahelian economies to flourish.