{"id":48597,"date":"2026-10-21T07:54:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T05:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=48597"},"modified":"2026-10-21T07:54:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T05:54:44","slug":"ecowas-sahel-alliance-agree-to-cooperate","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/ecowas-sahel-alliance-agree-to-cooperate\/","title":{"rendered":"ECOWAS, Sahel Alliance agree to cooperate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), have officially agreed to work together.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>During an inaugural ministerial dialogue held in Dakar in Senegal, over the weekend, the two blocs entered a new phase of pragmatic coexistence, ruling out a return to a single unified membership. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger withdrew from ECOWAS a year ago, forming the AES bloc.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Several diplomatic attempts and requests to reverse their withdrawal from ECOWAS, failed.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Dakar meeting has now closed the chapter as the two blocs agree to rather negotiate a new framework for bilateral partnership as separate entities to manage regional trade, security, and cross border movement.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>They have decided to form a joint thematic working group that would establish the working guidelines.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15873,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-48597","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"ECOWAS and AES have officially agreed to work together","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48599,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48597\/revisions\/48599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}