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ECOWA-Summit held in Sierra Leone
On Sunday, the 69th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took place in Lungi, Sierra Leone. At the meeting, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected as the new Chair of the regional organisation. In line with ECOWAS’s rotating chairmanship, he succeeded Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio, who had held the position since 2025. In addition, the Heads of State and Government appointed Birame Diop, the former Senegalese Minister of Defence and former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, as President of the ECOWAS Commission for the term 2026–2030. Diop will take up the post on 1 September, succeeding his predecessor from The Gambia, Dr Omar Alieu Touray.
During the summit, the participating states signed an Intergovernmental Agreement on the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline (AAGP). The agreement formalises the commitment of the ECOWAS member states to the strategic infrastructure project, which was launched in 2016 at the initiative of Nigeria and Morocco. The pipeline, which is around 6,800 kilometres long, is intended to transport natural gas from Nigeria along the Atlantic coast through a total of 13 countries to Morocco, where it will connect to the European gas network. The planned transport capacity is expected to reach up to 30 billion cubic metres of gas per year, of which up to 15 billion cubic metres are intended for Morocco and European markets. The remaining volume is to supply regional markets in the ECOWAS countries through which the pipeline will pass. Initial steps towards the regional integration of the pipeline had already been taken at the 66th ECOWAS Summit in December 2024 (Press Review CW 51/2024). Following the signing of the agreement, key project structures are now to be established, including a project company headquartered in Casablanca and a supervisory authority based in Abuja, before further investors are brought on board. A further formal step is the separate signing by Morocco and Mauritania, neither of which are ECOWAS member states. According to the current timetable, the first sections of the pipeline are expected to become operational from 2031 onwards. ECOWAS welcomed the cooperation between its member states and Morocco and highlighted the project’s potential for regional energy supply, economic development and investment within the framework of ECOWAS Vision 2050.
The ECOWAS also reaffirmed its existing objectives regarding further integration initiatives. The introduction of the common currency, the ECO, is still planned for 2027 and will initially begin with those countries that meet the established convergence criteria. Countries that do not yet fulfil these requirements are to be supported in preparing for future participation. In addition, the Community set further priorities in the areas of food security and regional integration: the implementation of the ECOWAS Rice Agenda is to be accelerated in order to reduce dependence on food imports, whilst measures to reduce air fares in West Africa are to be further pursued.
On the issue of peace and security, the Heads of State and Government called for transparent transitional processes in Guinea-Bissau and the release of political prisoners, as well as condemned xenophobic attacks on West African nationals in South Africa. Furthermore, they confirmed the continued implementation of the regional anti-terrorism brigade, which is due to be fully operational by July 2027. Relations with the AES states of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which have withdrawn from ECOWAS, also remained a key topic of the summit. ECOWAS reaffirmed that it would continue to conduct talks with the three countries jointly and extended the mandate of its chief negotiator, Lansana Kouyaté, until December 2026.
Preliminary Results of the Presidential Election in São Tomé and Príncipe
On Monday, the National Electoral Commission of São Tomé and Príncipe announced the preliminary results of the presidential election held the previous Sunday. According to these results, incumbent President Carlos Vila Nova secured a second term in office with 55.94% of the vote, thereby avoiding a run-off. Vila Nova ran as an independent candidate this time and was backed by an opposition alliance that included the country’s largest opposition party, the Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Príncipe (MLSTP). His main challenger, Nito Viegas D’Abreu, a member of the ruling party Acção Democrática Independente (ADI), was backed by Vila Nova’s former Prime Minister, Patrice Trovoada, and received 41.42% of the vote. Also standing as independent candidates were Miques João Bonfim and Eugénio Tiny, who received 1.58% and 1.07% of the vote respectively.
Voter turnout was estimated at approximately 41.2%, the lowest ever recorded in a presidential election in the country. Jeudiger Nascimento, Chair of the National Electoral Commission, expressed concern over the low turnout. The European Union Election Observation Mission assessed election day as peaceful and generally well organised. Only two incidents were reported, in Ilhéu das Rollas and Praia de Messias Alves, where polling stations were temporarily blocked.
Whilst 66-year-old Vila Nova presented himself during the election campaign as a guarantor of the “country’s political stability”, 43-year-old D’Abreu focused in particular on mobilising the young electorate and campaigned on a promise to create jobs and take measures to tackle emigration among young people. According to World Bank statistics, only around 21% of the population are in employment, more than half of the population lives below the national poverty line, and approximately 13% below the extreme poverty line. Young people in particular often lack economic opportunities. As a result, around 18% of the country’s population has emigrated in recent years, the majority to the former colonial power, Portugal. The country also continues to experience frequent power outages, while public infrastructure projects have progressed only slowly, prompting protests in March of this year. Alongside employment and economic prospects, combating corruption in government, high inflation, and chronic fuel shortages ranked among the key concerns of many voters.
The presidential election took place against a backdrop of ongoing domestic political tensions. Vila Nova had been elected president in 2021 as the ADI’s candidate and initially worked together with Prime Minister Trovoada, also a member of the ADI. However, after the ADI majority overruled a political veto by the president, the power struggle between Vila Nova and Trovoada’s government escalated. Vila Nova consequently dismissed Trovoada and his government in early January 2025, leading to a split within the ADI (Press Review, CW 2/2025). A year later, the Constitutional Court ruled that the dismissal was unconstitutional; however, as the ruling had no retroactive effect, Trovoada’s successor, Américo Ramos, remained in office. Vila Nova’s re-election is therefore also interpreted by observers as a strengthening of the government led by Ramos and as a setback for the party faction aligned with Trovoada. Although the president holds important constitutional powers under the country’s semi-presidential system, day-to-day executive authority rests primarily with the prime minister and the government. Attention is now turning to the parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of September, in which ADI party leader Patrice Trovoada is standing again as candidate and which are regarded as decisive for the future balance of power and the formation of the next government.
Special news: Foreign Minister Wadephul is travelling to Mauritania, Nigeria and South Africa
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul concluded his four-day trip to Africa on Thursday, with visits to Mauritania, Nigeria and South Africa. He was accompanied by a business delegation. The trip began on Monday in Mauritania, marking the first visit by a German Foreign Minister to the country in around 30 years. The talks focused on the security situation in the Sahel region, cooperation in combating extremism and irregular migration, and the country’s potential in the field of renewable energy, particularly green hydrogen. During meetings in the Nigerian cities of Lagos and Abuja, the main priorities were expanding security cooperation in response to the growing impact of the Sahel crisis, strengthening collaboration with ECOWAS, and deepening economic, energy and raw materials partnerships. In Lagos, Wadephul also met with influencers from Nigeria’s cultural and creative industries to strengthen dialogue with the younger generation and civil society actors. The trip concluded in South Africa, where discussions focused in particular on bilateral relations – which had only recently been upgraded to a strategic partnership –, cooperation within the G20 framework, multilateralism, and closer collaboration in the fields of energy, critical raw materials and the economy. Wadephul strongly criticised South Africa’s exclusion from this year’s G20 Summit in the US. This is already the Foreign Minister’s third trip to Africa this year.
In other news
On Monday, a research team from the Institute of Fisheries and Marine Research in Benin published a study documenting the discovery of a living coral community at intermediate depths off the coast of Benin. The area had previously been surveyed between 1963 and 1964 but was classified at the time as a dead reef and was not investigated further. Between April and December 2025, the research team led by Gérard Zinzindohoué surveyed an 11.5-kilometre section of the seafloor using side-scan sonar and underwater video recordings. At a depth of approximately 54 metres, they discovered a living mesophotic coral garden, consisting of small, scattered coral assemblages. As no physical samples have yet been collected, the coral species have not been conclusively identified. Mesophotic coral reefs can occur at depths of up to 150 metres. Their location makes them difficult to access, and they remain among the least studied marine ecosystems worldwide. According to the researchers, this represents the first confirmed record of a living mesophotic coral ecosystem on the continental shelf of the Gulf of Guinea.