Ghana and Burkina Faso have signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement to strengthen security along key cross-border trade routes and provide military escorts for commercial transit amid growing security threats in the Sahel.

The agreement, signed by Ghana’s Acting Defence Minister Cassiel Ato Forson and Burkina Faso’s Minister of State and Minister of War and Patriotic Defence, Major General Célestin Simporé, establishes a framework for coordinated military operations to protect commercial traffic.

Under the pact, the two countries will deploy targeted security operations, armed military escorts for transit trucks, coordinated border patrols and increased intelligence sharing.

The immediate focus is to secure the movement of goods between landlocked Burkina Faso and Ghana’s maritime trade network, particularly the routes connecting Burkina Faso to the ports of Tema and Takoradi.

The agreement comes as regional trade patterns have shifted amid tensions between Burkina Faso and neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire.

Burkina Faso has increasingly redirected some of its import and export traffic away from the Ivorian port of Abidjan towards Ghana, making the Tema-Ouagadougou corridor an increasingly important trade route.

The increased cargo traffic has also heightened the importance of securing the corridor against attacks by armed groups operating in the wider Sahel region and along border areas.

The defence pact is intended to operationalise security commitments established under the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation between Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Beyond protecting commercial convoys, the agreement provides for stronger border controls and intelligence cooperation to counter terrorism and cross-border smuggling networks.

Joint military deployments and coordinated border patrols along major trade routes are expected to begin immediately.

The agreement comes as Burkina Faso continues to face persistent attacks by Islamist militant groups, with violence disrupting transport and commercial activity across parts of the Sahel.

For Ghana, strengthening security along its northern frontier and major trade corridors is also aimed at preventing instability in the Sahel from spilling further south.