On Sunday, Dec. 15, ECOWAS Commission President Omar Touray announced a six-month timeline for Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to exit the West Africa regional bloc. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger announced last January that they were withdrawing from the Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS.
Since 1975, ECOWAS has worked to build economic and political integration in the region. But these three members became increasingly dissatisfied with the bloc’s handling of the security challenges in the Sahel, and claimed that “foreign powers” have undermined the influence of member states within their own bloc. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have now formed a security cooperation confederation, the Alliance des États du Sahel (AES), as a counterweight to ECOWAS.
How will ECOWAS handle insecurity in the region – as well as engage with the AES countries in the future? While some have expressed concern that the pending changes to the regional bloc might further fragment West Africa, losing 3 of its 15 member states does not spell the end of ECOWAS. Research on international organizations tells us that withdrawal by member states might not be as destabilizing as expected. In fact, these exits could even strengthen the institution’s commitment to democracy.
Why do countries withdraw from international organizations?
There are lots of reasons – often countries no longer want to comply with the organizational rules. Or they cite dissatisfaction with organizational policies and performance,or internal politics within the organization. Changes in geopolitics could also prompt a country to exit an international organization.
However, withdrawal from international organizations is rare. This is due in part to the way organizations are designed. For instance, countries are more likely to withdraw if the organization has a specific exit clause – particularly if the nature of the cooperation changes in the organization.
Other research shows that countries might use the threat to leave as a way to demand organizational changes. For example, the United States during President Trump’s first term frequently threatened to leave NATO – unless other members increased their funding to the organization.
Sometimes countries may want to leave international organizations when they are dissatisfied with the status quo, and see little room for change. This often occurs when leaders see reasons to contest the “liberal international order.” In this case, the AES countries made it clear that their exit from ECOWAS reflected deep concerns about external influence, and the inability of ECOWAS to deal with the security and extreme violence in the Sahel. The AES countries argue that ECOWAS is irrevocably tied to the interests of their former colonizers, particularly France. This argument echoes research suggesting the capacity of African countries after colonization was limited by their continuing dependence on foreign countries.
While there were several reasons for Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to threaten to leave ECOWAS, the fact that they followed through is a bit of an anomaly. Typically, a dissatisfied member might disengage with the institution and threaten to withdraw. According to research examining threats of withdrawal from international organizations between 1945 and 2022, there were over 120 threats by countries to withdraw from an international organization – but just over 50 cases in which countries actually withdrew their membership.
Ultimately, domestic politics may have influenced the decision-making in these three African countries, more than anything else. The leaders of the AES countries have drawn on anti-French/anti-imperialist sentiment from their citizens to voice dissatisfaction with ECOWAS and justify withdrawing from this organization. This analysis is consistent with an emerging scholarship that looks at how nationalist and populist domestic politics shape engagement with international organizations.
Where does this leave ECOWAS?
Losing three members will undoubtedly hurt ECOWAS – and potentially the citizens of the three new AES states. But reports of ECOWAS’ demise are greatly exaggerated. To begin with, countries have left ECOWAS before, and yet continued to work with the organization through other channels. Mauritania exited ECOWAS in 2000, but has maintained relations with the bloc through trade and cooperation agreements.
The grace period for this withdrawal offers the three exiting countries an opportunity to establish cooperation pacts with ECOWAS. The three countries will now have to establish similar, but separate bilateral agreements – like the agreement between Nigeria and Niger – or create new agreements under the banner of AES to continue relations with ECOWAS and eventually other countries and regional blocs. The AES countries were frequently in arrears in their contributions to the ECOWAS community levy, so their leaving won’t reduce the organization’s resources. However, citizens of AES countries may soon lose out on the benefits of being in the bloc – including visa-free travel and greater flows of goods across the region, for instance.
Most research on international organization exits would expect ECOWAS to respond to the impending exit of the AES countries by changing its institutional rules to accommodate the threat of withdrawal. But the context here matters. Each of the three countries exiting ECOWAS has experienced coups in the last four years. Critics point out that the ECOWAS response to the coups in West Africa from 2021-2023 may have backfired, arguing that sanctions and suspension complicated the ability of ECOWAS to meaningfully engage with coup leaders from these three countries.
Over the last year, ECOWAS made efforts to engage the coup leaders. The organization lifted some sanctions, asked religious leaders and the presidents of Senegal and Togo to mediate with the coup leaders, and scaled up plans to build out the ECOWAS standby force to deal with security threats in the region. While these efforts may not have been sufficient to keep these three countries in the bloc, they may open up space for more engagement, while preserving the integrity of the ECOWAS zero-tolerance stance for unconstitutional changes in government. And by accepting the withdrawal of the AES countries, ECOWAS leaders can uphold the organization’s standard of rejecting unconstitutional changes in government.
What will ensure the survival of ECOWAS?
It is important to remember that ECOWAS is a multipurpose organization – its work spans more than peace, security, and regional trade. ECOWAS also operates in the areas of public health, gender policy, energy and infrastructure, free movement of people, and human development and social affairs. It is unclear how the official withdrawal will handle the existing ECOWAS programs in these countries. The withdrawal of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso means that the citizens of those countries will not be able to directly benefit from ECOWAS’ increasing capacity in these sectors.
For instance, the West African Health Organization (WAHO), the health institution of ECOWAS, is headquartered in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. It is uncertain how Burkina Faso’s ruling junta will manage WAHO’s operations. WAHO has become a capable first responder to public health crises in the region and it remains to be seen how WAHO’s operations will be affected by Burkina Faso’s withdrawal from ECOWAS.
One of ECOWAS’ strengths is its bureaucratic capacity. As I argue in my book, this capacity allows the organization to accomplish much in other sectors – or, at the very least, allows ECOWAS to leverage enough stakeholders to maintain its relevance as a resource in regional governance.
Another reason ECOWAS will survive is because the remaining members still see ECOWAS as a viable forum for promoting democracy and good governance. It’s true that leaders of some ECOWAS members continue to undercut democratic processes and weaken domestic institutions, seeking to consolidate their own position and remain in power. However, three of the most influential countries in ECOWAS – Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal – along with Liberia and Sierra Leone, have had multiple successive elections and chose to thwart attempts to subvert the progress toward democracy in their countries.
The future of ECOWAS may be uncertain, but the literature suggests that the organization is hardly finished. Indeed, it may be that the choice to preserve the integrity of the organization’s zero-tolerance stance on unconstitutional changes, even as it led to the withdrawal of these three members, will even strengthen the organization’s credibility in the region.
Emmanuel Balogun is a 2024-2025 Good Authority fellow.
