On Friday, December 13, 2025, the Finance Ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced in Bamako the formal creation of the Union of Sahel Nations Investment and Development Bank, a new regional financial institution aimed at financing infrastructure, energy and food systems in one of Africa’s most economically constrained regions.
The bank, known by its French acronym BCID-AES, was approved after several months of technical work and its founding charter was signed in the presence of Mali’s President Assimi Goita, who currently chairs the Sahel Alliance. The move itself signals a change in the way the three countries finance development, although questions such as how much capital banks will command, who will manage them, and whether they will accept external partners remain to be resolved.
The Alliance of Sahel States was established amid political realignment and strained relations with traditional development partners. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger face overlapping challenges, including weak infrastructure, high dependence on agriculture, chronic electricity shortages, and rising security costs.
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Although the need for public investment is great, access to international finance is becoming increasingly difficult, leading governments to look domestically and regionally for solutions. The creation of BCID-AES followed an announcement in May that the Alliance wanted its own investment vehicle to direct sovereign resources to common priorities.
The bank will focus on roads, agriculture, food security, energy generation and cross-border connectivity, as well as selected private projects in line with national plans, the people said. These areas reflect some of the most pressing gaps in the Sahel region. In Burkina Faso and Niger, less than half of the population has access to electricity, while Mali has only slightly higher access rates.
Lack of electricity raises costs for businesses and limits industrial growth, while weak transport links drive up food prices and constrain regional trade. Although a large proportion of the three countries’ populations are employed in agriculture, productivity remains low and they are highly vulnerable to climate change.
BCID-AES is positioned alongside existing African development financial institutions such as the West African Development Bank and the Central African Development Bank, which pool members’ contributions and borrow in the capital markets to finance public and private projects. Together, these institutions raise billions of dollars each year. Whether a new Sahel bank can approach that scale will depend on its starting capital and governance.
Three member countries have pledged initial funding, but no figures have been made public. Officials are also discussing a federal tax to provide a steady stream of revenue, a proposal that would tie banks’ balance sheets directly to already strained national budgets.
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The decision to establish a bank in Bamako has both symbolic and practical weight. Mali is centrally located within the alliance and has already hosted regional institutions. From there, BCID-AES must quickly build technical capacity, appoint an experienced management team, and put in place reliable risk controls sufficient to attract cofinancing. Large-scale infrastructure and energy projects often require long terms and blended financing, especially in low-income, high-risk environments such as the Sahel.
Unresolved issues regarding international participation will shape the Bank’s future scope. Opening the institution to non-member countries and external partners could expand its capital base and reduce borrowing costs, but it would also require compromises on governance and oversight. Remaining closed would maintain political control but limit the scale of projects that can be supported. This choice is important because the region’s infrastructure funding gap is in the billions of dollars annually.
The African Development Bank estimates that Africa as a whole faces an annual infrastructure deficit of up to $100 billion, with vulnerable regions bearing a disproportionate share of unmet needs.
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