Bilateral ties could lead to West African co-operation?

Despite tensions between the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the Confederation of Sahel States (AES), recent advances reflect a broader regional trend, writes Djiby Sow, senior researcher, ISS Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel, in a Polity analysis. Sow believes that pending the outcome of Ecowas-AES talks, co-operation between neighbouring states offers a starting point for rebuilding regional security ties. ‘In August, Ghana and Burkina Faso signed a defence agreement, while Mali and Côte d’Ivoire agreed to delimit their shared border. The withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from Ecowas in January 2025 deeply fragmented West Africa’s institutional architecture, but did not end co-operation between individual states. Instead, relations are being pragmatically reorganised around countries’ security priorities, mainly through bilateral deals. This shift has been underway since 2025 and offers a concrete way to manage divisions without waiting for ongoing Ecowas-AES negotiations to produce a political agreement.’ Sow says across several Ecowas-AES fault lines, states are reactivating or deepening bilateral co-operation frameworks, agreements, joint commissions, or operational mechanisms, some of which predate the current regional crisis. ‘Joint patrols launched by Senegal and Mali in the Kayes region in 2025 build on a co-operation framework established in 2021. Mali and Guinea’s shared military commission met in April 2025 and June 2026, producing a memorandum of understanding that provides for intelligence sharing.

And in August 2026, Ghana and Burkina Faso signed a defence pact after relaunching their Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation and signing seven cross-border cooperation agreements.’ Sow states that these initiatives show that institutional fragmentation has not paralysed security co-operation altogether, even if the effectiveness of agreements is yet to be demonstrated. ‘They also challenge the notion of a standstill, as bilateral mechanisms play an increasingly prominent role, enabling states to maintain or rebuild relations around their immediate security interests. This window of opportunity should be maximised while Ecowas and the AES negotiate a framework for future security co-operation. Talks could drag on, or even stall, given how politically and symbolically charged relations between the two blocs remain. Meanwhile, armed groups continue to exploit gaps in co-operation. Rather than waiting for a new institutional agreement, regional actors and their partners could reverse the sequence. They could encourage states to co-operate where their interests converge, facilitate rapprochement where political tensions stand in the way, and over time, connect bilateral arrangements through flexible regional mechanisms.’ He states in the Polity analysis that two of West Africa’s border areas need priority attention. ‘The first is northern Benin, where jihadist groups exploit gaps in neighbouring countries’ collaboration… The second is the Sikasso-Korhogo-Bobo-Dioulasso cross-border area, where Mali, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso meet.’ Sow believes that other regional actors could help unblock co-operation in these priority border areas.

‘The Conseil de l’Entente, which brings together Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Togo, with Mali as an observer, already has a dialogue framework on security and border management. It could discreetly facilitate rapprochement among its members... In the Benin-Niger-Nigeria zone, the African Union (AU) Mission for Mali and the Sahel (MISAHEL) could offer a complementary entry point. Its mandate, which will extend to Benin and Togo from 2027, and its AU affiliation independent of both Ecowas and AES, make it well placed to facilitate dialogue among the three countries. The aim would be to gradually restore trust and help states identify concrete ways to restart joint security initiatives.’ MISAHEL, Sow notes, could share lessons from the Nouakchott Process, launched by the AU in 2013 to strengthen security cooperation in the Sahelo-Saharan region, with the priority border areas. ‘Although the process is largely inactive, the mechanisms it promoted – intelligence sharing, cross-border co-ordination, joint patrols and regular exchanges between security officials – are precisely those that several states want to revive on an ad hoc basis in their bilateral cooperation. This approach should remain flexible enough to adapt to the needs that states themselves identify.’ The goal, Sow says in the Polity analysis, would not be to replicate a regional mechanism, but to tailor these tools to the needs and possibilities specific to each border area. ‘In the long run, an Ecowas-AES framework could develop from working relations established on the ground, rather than from the top down through an institutional agreement. The resulting regional architecture may be less orderly than before, but more solid – precisely because it would be anchored in states’ concrete security interests and their need to cooperate.’

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