From the Lake Chad Basin to western Mali, insecurity in West Africa is profoundly transnational. Yet regional political fragmentation, driven by the recent wave of coups in the central Sahel, has undermined effective cross‑border security cooperation.

With the decline of multilateral frameworks such as the G5 Sahel and the Multinational Joint Task Force, progress on core issues–including the right of hot pursuit, joint military operations, intelligence sharing and tackling illicit finance–has stalled. As the Alliance of Sahel States develops its own security architecture, Mali’s ongoing fuel blockade underscores the unavoidable interdependence of landlocked states with their neighbours.

At this event, the foreign ministers of Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone examine strategies capable of addressing the root causes of rising insecurity. They consider approaches to bilateral relations and practical options to revive West African regionalism, including mechanisms to restore trust and cooperation at a time of acute crisis.