While Côte d'Ivoire has managed to professionalize its security forces and maintain relative calm in the country’s interior regions, concerns over violent extremism continue to plague its northern borders with countries like Mali and Burkina Faso. Vagondo Diomandé, Côte d'Ivoire’s minister of interior and security, discusses the country’s security landscape, his first impressions of the U.S. Strategy for Conflict Prevention and Stability Promotion in Coastal West Africa, and why a regional security approach is the only way to fully address the cross-border threat of terrorism.