Key points:
- The 5.5 percent rate covers West Africa
- AES growth varied sharply by country
- Commodities drove much of the resilience
THE economies of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger expanded strongly in 2025 despite insecurity, strained relations with ECOWAS and reduced access to some external financing. Their performance offers evidence of resilience, but not proof that the Alliance of Sahel States has built a successful alternative economic model.
Primary data show that AES economic resilience rested largely on gold, oil, agriculture and services. Growth was also uneven, while poverty, climate exposure, disrupted trade corridors and dependence on commodity exports continued to limit the gains reaching ordinary households.
What the data actually show
The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) says in its 2025 annual report that West Africa’s economy grew by 5.5 percent. That figure covers the wider region rather than the three AES members alone.
The same report places ECOWAS growth at 4.7 percent and expansion within the West African Economic and Monetary Union at 6.4 percent.
EBID’s separate West African Development Outlook had projected combined AES growth of 5.0 percent, based on forecasts of 4.2 percent for Burkina Faso, 4.7 percent for Mali and 6.5 percent for Niger.
Subsequent estimates changed as institutions incorporated more complete information. The differences underline why the bloc should not be assessed through a single headline growth figure.
Burkina Faso’s gold-powered expansion
The IMF now estimates that Burkina Faso’s economy grew by 5.3 percent in 2025, an upward revision from its earlier estimate of 5.0 percent. The World Bank gives the same rate, attributing the expansion to services, agriculture, construction and mining.
High gold prices and mining-sector reforms helped lift activity. Gold production increased from 61 tonnes in 2024 to 94 tonnes in 2025 as artisanal output entered formal channels and some industrial mines resumed or began production.
The record output, examined in Africa Briefing’s report on Burkina Faso’s 94-tonne gold year, strengthened exports and public revenue.
However, the World Bank says 93.5 percent of employment remains informal and estimates that 34.6 percent of the population lived in extreme poverty in 2025. Stronger gold exports have therefore not eliminated the economy’s deeper employment and welfare problems.
Niger leads with oil and agriculture
Niger recorded the strongest growth among the three countries. The IMF’s latest assessment places growth at 6.9 percent, while the World Bank estimates 7.0 percent.
Oil exports through the Niger-Benin pipeline, agricultural production and services supported activity. The World Bank calculates that exports contributed 6.8 percentage points to growth, despite attacks on the pipeline.
But Niger remains highly exposed. Rain-fed agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of GDP, while rapid population growth limits gains per person. Security incidents also disrupted farming, transport and oil exports.
The World Bank says 46.6 percent of the population remained in extreme poverty in 2025. It also identifies banking weaknesses, financing pressure and a high risk of debt distress.
Mali reveals the bloc’s limits
Mali’s performance shows why the AES cannot be treated as one uniformly successful economy.
The IMF estimates growth of 4.9 percent in 2025, but the World Bank puts it at 4.1 percent. The gap reflects different institutional estimates and data vintages while national accounts remain provisional.
The World Bank says a militant fuel blockade disrupted trade corridors, electricity generation and supply chains during the final quarter. Gold production also fell from 57 tonnes to 47 tonnes.
Services, agriculture, telecommunications and new lithium production prevented a sharper slowdown. Yet the blockade, covered in Africa Briefing’s analysis of Mali’s fuel and security crisis, demonstrated how quickly armed groups can damage economic activity.
Growth is not political proof
The three economies avoided the severe contraction that political upheaval, reduced external financing and sanctions on Niger might have suggested. That is economically and politically significant.
But the evidence does not show that military rule or departure from ECOWAS caused the expansion. Gold prices lifted Burkina Faso, oil transformed Niger’s export position, and agriculture supported all three countries.
The AES is creating institutions, including a CFA500bn regional investment bank, common financing mechanisms and a joint security force.
These initiatives may eventually deepen integration, but they have not yet created a diversified common market or removed the bloc’s dependence on raw commodity exports.
The most defensible conclusion is that the AES achieved genuine but commodity-supported resilience in 2025. Its economies grew, but the foundations remain vulnerable to violence, climate shocks, trade disruption and changing global prices.
