The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a strong record of setting regional norms on governance and democracy.
Yet the organization now faces significant challenges in how to reorient its role and credibility amid a rise in military and ‘constitutional’ coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and most recently Niger.
On this episode of Africa Aware, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS’s Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, discusses the regional bloc’s immediate response to the coup in Niger, and outlines the organization’s strategic vision for tackling the complex peace and security challenges in the Sahel and West Africa.