On January 28, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will lose three of its founding members—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—comprising 16% of its population of 424 million and 7% of its GDP. Labeled “Sahelexit” by some commentators, the decision to leave ECOWAS was first announced a year ago by the three countries’ trio of military leaders and is now poised to legally take effect. The three countries have created the Alliance of Sahel States (Alliance des États du Sahel, AES), a mutual defense and security pact formalized through the signing of the Liptako Gourma Charter in 2023.
While ECOWAS has given these three AES states a six-month transition period until July 2025 in case they backtrack and want to return, the AES leaders have rejected that scenario, asserting that their decision is irreversible. Their exit from Africa’s largest political and economic union threatens to disrupt flows of goods, services, and people—with potentially serious consequences for food security in a region where almost 17 million children under five are already acutely malnourished.