Central Idea

Military leaders from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger signed a significant mutual defense pact known as the Liptako-Gourma Charter, marking a crucial step in addressing the security challenges plaguing the Sahel region.

Liptako-Gourma Charter

This pact establishes the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and aims to create a framework for collective defense and mutual assistance among these nations.
The Liptako-Gourma region, where the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger converge, has been severely affected by jihadist activities and instability in recent years.
The AES seeks to combine military and economic efforts to confront common security threats and advance the well-being of their populations.

Mutual Assistance: The charter binds signatory nations to provide mutual assistance, including military support, in the event of an attack on any one of them.
Security Restoration: It specifically allows the use of armed force to restore and ensure security in the face of aggression.
Rebellion Prevention: The agreement also commits the 3 countries to collaborate on preventing or resolving armed rebellions within their borders.

Shared Objective: The primary focus of the alliance is to combat terrorism within the three member countries.
Jihadist Insurgency: The Sahel region has grappled with a jihadist insurgency that initially emerged in northern Mali in 2012 and later spread to Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015.

sahel

The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south.
Having a semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.
The name is derived from the Arabic term for “coast, shore”; this is explained as being used in a figurative sense in reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara.
The Sahel part includes from west to east parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, the extreme north of Cameroon and the Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and the extreme north of Ethiopia.