ECOWAS is the fifteen-country West African bloc with one of the widest free-movement regimes outside Europe: member citizens may enter without a visa, reside and work throughout. Mali, with Burkina Faso and Niger, has given notice of withdrawal and formed its own three-country alliance, following published timelines with transitional arrangements.

The three states say they will continue visa-free travel for ECOWAS citizens and ECOWAS has made corresponding statements, but these are political arrangements rather than treaty rights. Before withdrawal the right was a treaty right — written down, with mechanisms, with somewhere to complain. After withdrawal what lets someone through is a political statement, withdrawable at any time without breaching anything.

The figure visa-free to N countries is not a property of the passport but the sum of treaties, bilateral agreements and unilateral decisions by N other countries, each written by a different government and each changeable. Mali shows the number can fall not because the country wronged those countries but because of a domestic political decision. The booklet did not change a word; what changed is what stands behind it.

Three questions matter more than the visa-free count: does this passport's mobility come mainly from treaties or from unilateral decisions by the other country; is this country in a regional bloc and is that membership stable; if relations with a major bloc deteriorate, which part of the mobility goes first — usually the most valuable part.

Yes. This library has recorded Schengen visa waivers being suspended or tightened for some countries operating investment citizenship programmes. The mechanism is identical to Mali–ECOWAS, only the scale differs.

Hundreds of thousands of handwritten texts on astronomy, law, mathematics and medicine, physical evidence refuting the notion that this region lacked a written tradition. Timbuktu was a centre of scholarship and trans-Saharan trade for centuries. During the conflict of the 2010s part of the heritage was damaged and a rescue campaign moved very many manuscripts out of danger.

Gold is the largest export and Mali is among Africa's leading gold producers, alongside cotton, livestock and agriculture. Lithium deposits are also under development.

The security situation makes this no place to plan a personal relocation at present. There is prolonged armed conflict in the north and centre with major humanitarian impact, the country is landlocked and dependent on neighbours' ports, and drought and desertification threaten agriculture.