The Malian government has reviewed and endorsed the Year II consensus roadmap of the Confederation of Sahel States (AES), reinforcing regional coordination just days after approving new legal instruments for the bloc. The review took place at the Prime Minister’s Office under the steering committee of Mali’s national AES body. Officials assessed priorities for the second year, building on first-year gains and aligning joint actions with Burkina Faso and Niger. The roadmap is structured around three pillars: defense and security cooperation, diplomatic coordination, and development planning.
Earlier, on February 13, 2026, Mali’s Council of Ministers approved legislation authorising the ratification of four additional AES protocols covering defence, diplomacy, development, and parliamentary coordination. These texts were adopted at the bloc’s second ordinary summit in Bamako in December 2025. At that summit, the AES rotating presidency passed to Ibrahim Traoré, succeeding Mali’s leader Assimi Goïta, who held the inaugural term.
The AES evolved from the Alliance of Sahel States formed in 2023, formalized with a founding treaty signed in Niamey in July 2024. The three member states jointly withdrew from ECOWAS in January 2025, accelerating the bloc’s institutional consolidation. Authorities say the Year II roadmap will operationalize recent legal commitments into concrete actions, particularly on security operations, regional mobility, infrastructure, and economic resilience as the Sahel continues to face security and development pressures.
