page_title: Niger
section_title: Foreign relations
hierarchical_section_title: Niger / Governance and politics / Foreign relations
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Drapeau du Niger sur l'ambassade à Paris.English: Flag of Niger on the embassy in Paris.
context_page_description: Niger or the Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa named after the Niger River. Niger is bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin to the southwest, Mali to the north-west, Burkina Faso to the south-west, and Algeria to the northwest. Niger covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km², making it the largest country in West Africa. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara Desert. The country's predominantly Muslim population of about 22 million live mostly in clusters in the far south and west of the country. The capital and largest city is Niamey, located in Niger's southwest corner.
  Niger is a developing country, which consistently ranks near the bottom in the United Nations' Human Development Index; it was ranked 187th of 188 countries for 2015 and 189th out of 189 countries in the 2018 and 2019 reports. Many of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence, with some export agriculture in the more fertile south, and export of raw materials, especially uranium ore.
context_section_description: Niger pursues a moderate foreign policy and maintains friendly relations with the West and the Islamic world as well as non-aligned countries. It belongs to the UN and its main specialized agencies and in 1980–81 served on the UN Security Council. Niger maintains a special relationship with former colonial power France and has close relations with its West African neighbors.
  It is a charter member of the African Union and the West African Monetary Union and also belongs to the Niger Basin Authority and Lake Chad Basin Commission, the Economic Community of West African States, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The westernmost regions of Niger are joined with contiguous regions of Mali and Burkina Faso under the Liptako-Gourma Authority.
  The border dispute with Benin, inherited from colonial times and concerning inter alia Lété Island in the Niger River, was solved by the International Court of Justice in 2005 to Niger's advantage.
caption: Niger's flag waving at the embassy in Paris.
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