The Aes’s Institutional Ambition
South Africa, 28 August 2026
The Confederation of Sahel States (AES) is seeking to evolve from a mutual-defence pact into a more permanent political and economic union. At its inaugural session in Niamey on 24 August, 45 deputies took seats in the Confederal Parliament, but the chamber’s authority remains limited, it can deliberate and issue opinions on matters referred by the College of Heads of State, without independent legislative or budgetary powers.
Since its creation through the 2023 Liptako-Gourma Charter, the AES has built an increasingly formal structure. The three states signed a Confederation treaty in July 2024, left ECOWAS in January 2025, introduced a common passport and external import levy, inaugurated a Unified Force, and established a development bank. These steps show that the alliance is becoming institutionally durable, but its ability to function as a genuine economic confederation is expected to depend on whether its new bodies gain practical authority and deliver tangible results.
A Parliament Without Legislative Power
The AES’s 45-member parliament, whose deputies were appointed through the three countries’ transitional legislative structures, represents the existing junta-era political order rather than a distinct confederal mandate. Its members have adopted internal rules and created commissions on defence and security, diplomacy, and development, establishing an organisational framework for future work.
However, the parliament remains consultative and cannot independently legislate, control budgets, or bind member states. Therefore, it may function more as an instrument of coordination and political legitimacy for the military governments than as an independent legislature. Its future powers are expected to help determine whether the AES develops into a durable political union or remains primarily an institutional extension of junta rule.
Economic Sovereignty Remains a Work in Progress
The AES’s economic agenda focuses on resource sovereignty and independent financial institutions, but most progress remains national rather than confederal. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have tightened state control over strategic resources through mining reforms, disputes with foreign operators and efforts to reclaim uranium and other assets. In August, they also approved a common framework for energy, mining and petroleum resources and agreed to harmonise policy documents. However, these measures have not yet produced a single enforceable mining code, leaving royalties, ownership, local content and investor disputes governed by separate national systems.
The same gap is evident in finance. The Confederal Investment and Development Bank, inaugurated in December 2025 with announced capital of XOF 500-billion, is intended to finance infrastructure and reduce reliance on external lenders. Yet, as of August 2026, it had reportedly made no disbursements. The AES has therefore established the institution faster than it has demonstrated its ability to deliver practical financing.
Currency sovereignty remains even more distant. Although an AES currency would fit the bloc’s broader political agenda, the three countries remain within the West African monetary system and CFA-franc framework. The development bank is not a central bank, and the Confederation has yet to create the reserves, payment systems or monetary institutions required to support a separate currency.
Lomé is becoming more than a trade corridor
If the AES’s financial and parliamentary institutions remain underdeveloped, its most tangible integration may be visible outside the Confederation, particularly in Togo. Although Togo is not an AES member and remains part of ECOWAS, Lomé has become increasingly important to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as relations with traditional coastal routes have deteriorated. Its 2026–2028 strategy to expand political dialogue, trade, economic integration and security cooperation with the Sahel positions Togo as a bridge between the AES, ECOWAS and the African Union.
The relationship is driven by mutual commercial interests: the landlocked AES states need reliable access to the sea, while Togo benefits from becoming a transit hub for their trade. Customs cooperation and development of the Lomé-Bamako corridor give this partnership an institutional foundation, showing that AES economic sovereignty may depend less on isolation than on controlling access to external markets.
Lomé’s role is also strategic. A sanctioned Russian cargo vessel carrying military equipment linked to Africa Corps forces in Mali reportedly docked there in July, followed by a convoy through Togo and Burkina Faso to Mali. The same corridor therefore supports both AES trade and security partnerships, complicating Togo’s image as a neutral intermediary. By remaining outside the AES while deepening ties with its members, Lomé has developed a model of cooperation without membership and strengthened its position between competing regional blocs.
A real confederation — or legitimacy infrastructure?
The strongest argument against dismissing the AES as theatre is that some of its integration measures are difficult to reverse. ECOWAS withdrawal has happened. The AES passport exists. A confederal levy is being collected. A joint force has been established and given an institutional framework. A parliamentary body has been formally installed. A development bank has been incorporated. Resource policy is increasingly being discussed at the confederal level, while trade is being redirected through corridors that bind the three states more closely together.
The strongest argument against calling the AES an economic confederation today is that its most important shared institutions remain shallow. The parliament cannot legislate independently. The development bank had yet to disburse its first project as of mid-August. Mining harmonisation remains a framework rather than a single enforceable code. Monetary sovereignty remains aspirational. And the military regimes that built the Confederation remain the primary source of its political authority.
Those two assessments are not mutually exclusive. Institutional construction can be both substantive and political theatre. A flag, passport, parliament, bank and common security force create recognition infrastructure and make a new regional order look increasingly permanent. They can also serve the interests of governments seeking to legitimise military rule after abandoning the political architecture of ECOWAS. The fact that the same institution can serve both purposes is precisely why the AES should not be judged either entirely by its communiqués or entirely by its critics.
The more useful comparison is therefore not between “super-state” and “failure”, but between institutional form and institutional function. The AES is moving rapidly on the first. It is moving more slowly on the second.
Four tests will determine what comes next
The next stage of the project should be judged against practical tests rather than declarations.
First, does the Niamey parliament acquire a formal budgetary role, binding assent, or another mechanism through which it can influence decisions made by the College of Heads of State? Second, does the BCID-AES finance and complete a visible cross-border project—a road, power facility, industrial development or other infrastructure—rather than remain primarily an institutional announcement? Third, do the August mining agreements become a single ratified instrument that actually standardises fiscal terms, ownership rules and investor obligations? Fourth, does Togo eventually move from strategic cooperation to formal accession, or does Lomé preserve its position as an intermediary between the AES, ECOWAS and outside powers?
The answers are expected to determine whether the AES is becoming what its leaders increasingly claim: an economic and political confederation capable of replacing the regional structures from which it has withdrawn. For now, the evidence points to something more qualified. The AES has moved well beyond the security pact created in 2023, and it is clearly building institutions intended to make the rupture with ECOWAS durable. But it is still institutionalising faster than it is exercising power.
In Niamey, the Sahel juntas built a parliament that cannot yet legislate and presented it as a pillar of a new Confederation. In Ouagadougou, they began harmonising the resource policies that underpin their sovereignty agenda. In Bamako, they established a development bank that has yet to demonstrate its ability to lend. And through Lomé, they are securing both a commercial outlet and an increasingly important logistics route. The architecture is no longer imaginary. Whether it becomes economically load-bearing remains the more important question.
