ECOWAS summit in Accra addresses Sahel security crisis
Heads of state from fifteen West African nations gathered in Accra to coordinate a regional response to the expanding security vacuum in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger following military governments’ expulsion of French forces.
Leaders of fifteen ECOWAS member states convened at the Accra International Conference Centre on Monday for an emergency summit focused on the widening security crisis in the Sahel, where the withdrawal of French and European Union military missions from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger has left a vacuum that armed groups continue to exploit.nnHost President Mahama, as ECOWAS chair, opened proceedings with a call for unity and a warning that the crisis posed an existential risk to West Africa’s democratic tradition. “What happens in the Sahel does not stay in the Sahel. The reverberations reach our coastlines, our cities and our communities,” he said.nnThe summit produced a seven-point framework committing member states to intelligence sharing, joint border management and a pooled humanitarian fund for communities displaced by conflict. It also endorsed a new ECOWAS Stabilisation Force concept that could deploy troops from coastal nations with consent from affected governments.nnThe critical complication is that the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — who withdrew from ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States — were not present and have consistently rejected regional frameworks as external interference. Diplomatic sources said back-channel communications with Bamako had been more productive in recent weeks.nnUnited Nations Secretary-General António Guterres sent a special envoy to the summit and committed an additional $100 million from the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund to community resilience programmes in the affected areas.nnNigeria, as ECOWAS’s largest economy, pledged to host a follow-up security ministers’ meeting within sixty days and lead the technical work on the proposed stabilisation force.
