The food economy in West Africa is a significant driver of economic activity, accounting for one-third of the region's GDP and employing two-thirds of the population. This includes not only agriculture but also the mid- and downstream segments such as processing, transport, wholesale, and retail. Intra-regional food trade is a powerful engine for economic transformation, connecting specialized commercial production areas with consumption centers in booming urban areas.
Map of ECOWAS Member States.
The Importance of Intra-Regional Food Trade
Intra-regional food trade in West Africa has long been underestimated. Estimates indicate that nearly 38% of West Africa's food trade is destined for the regional market, excluding exports of cocoa and cashew nuts. This is six times higher than official data suggests. Up to 68,000 billion calories are traded in the region every year, enough to cover the annual energy needs of around 80 million people. In terms of protein, 2.6 billion kilograms are traded each year, corresponding to the needs of nearly 200 million people. This is explained by the significant share of livestock and fish in intraregional food trade.
Shifting entrenched misperceptions about intra-regional food trade is a critical first step toward more effective agricultural and trade policies in West Africa. Often dismissed as marginal or informal, this trade is in fact vital to West Africa’s food security and economic development. It is worth an estimated USD 10 billion annually, supports employment across value chains, and ensures year-round food availability. Reframing it as a strategic asset is essential for unlocking its full potential.
Regional trade also strengthens food sovereignty. It connects producers to growing urban markets, boosts domestic production, diversifies diets, and builds resilience against external shocks. Rather than undermining national food systems, it reinforces them. Yet, protectionist policies-especially export bans-continue to disrupt flows and weaken agricultural investment. ECOWAS can play a central role in shifting toward a shared regional vision, aligning national strategies, and promoting policies that support regional integration.
Read also: A Taste of West Africa in New York
While non-tariff barriers remain significant, focusing solely on their removal overlooks deeper structural issues. Access to regulatory information, efficient public services, and modern transport systems are equally vital. Restoring trust in public institutions and building a service-oriented trade bureaucracy is key. ECOWAS can drive reforms by harmonising regulations and improving access to clear, centralised trade information across the region.
Finally, better data is essential. Up to 85% of intra-regional food trade goes unrecorded-missing from the data and missing from the debate. This gap distorts policymaking and undercuts support for regional trade.
Our estimates suggest that up to 58% of regional food exports, cocoa and cashew excluded, are traded within the region. This is on par with the often-cited intra-regional trade statistic of 60% for the European Union, a bloc with double the partners and 15 times the gross domestic product (GDP) of ECOWAS. More than a third of West African countries also trade more food within the region than they do with the rest of the world.
Intra-regional food trade.
Intra-regional trade is also a lifeline for regional food and nutrition security, with food flows criss-crossing the entire West African region. Annually, it facilitates the circulation of an estimated 68 trillion kilocalories-enough to meet the nutritional needs of 80 million people, or 25% of West Africa’s population.
Read also: Experience Fad's Fine African Cuisine
ECOWAS Initiatives and Strategies
The ECOWAS regional food security storage strategy, in place since 2011, is based on three main pillars:
- Food security storage to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in the event of cyclical food crises.
- Interventions to improve the functioning of markets and reduce price volatility.
- Food security social safety nets for populations with structural livelihood deficits.
In less than ten years, significant progress has been made, through the capitalization of good practices in the management of local stocks by producer organizations, the development of national storage strategies by Member States and the structuring of the RFSR, which has supported 22 interventions since its creation, benefiting 4.3 million vulnerable people.
However, the challenges persist in the context of increasing deterioration in food and nutrition security, marked by conflicts, economic shocks, pandemics, climatic crises and weakened access to public services. The revision of the regional food security storage strategy aims to strengthen the region’s capacity to prevent and manage food, nutrition and pastoral crises in a sustainable and coordinated manner.
ECOWAS is uniquely placed to facilitate, coordinate and enforce such a transition. "Obstacles such as import restrictions, high transport costs and a lack of standards and quality policies make it impossible to share resources and food staples among countries in West Africa," says Ben Shepherd, co-author of the report.
Challenges and Obstacles
Despite its successes, ECOWAS faces several challenges that limit its continued evolution. One of the most pressing issues is the bureaucratic red tape procedures that continue to hinder seamless cross-border trade within the region. Informal roadblocks and excessive customs checks have slowed the movement of agricultural products, affecting the efficiency of intra-regional trade. Logistics performance in the region is reportedly below the African average, with many ECOWAS countries scoring poorly in customs procedures and timeliness of shipments.
Read also: The Story Behind Cachapas
Non-tariff measures (NTMs) remain another critical issue - the results of surveys conducted by the International Trade Centre (ITC) show that NTMs are pervasive in intraregional trade in agricultural products, given that companies face NTMs in both origin and destination countries.
Another critical challenge is the delay in implementing a common currency across the ECOWAS states. Although a unified currency was proposed decades ago, the roll-out has been repeatedly postponed.
From a political perspective, in January 2024, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced that they were leaving ECOWAS with immediate effect, arguing that the organisation was not helping them enough in their fight against terrorism.
The "Sahelexit" and Its Implications
On January 28, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will lose three of its founding members-Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger-comprising 16% of its population of 424 million and 7% of its GDP. Labeled “Sahelexit” by some commentators, the decision to leave ECOWAS was first announced a year ago by the three countries’ trio of military leaders and is now poised to legally take effect.
The implications of exit are most obvious for trade relations because the trio is leaving the ECOWAS customs union. Since 2015, import tariffs for intra-ECOWAS goods were eliminated and a common external tariff (CET) with five tariff bands was levied on imports from non-ECOWAS countries regardless of the first port of entry into the bloc. As a consequence of their expected departure, the AES trio will be obligated to adhere to the CET rates for their imports into ECOWAS and revert to using the WTO’s Most Favored Nation rates on imports from ECOWAS countries.
Since the AES countries are landlocked, the economic impacts from the tariff increases and the loss of coastal port access in Dakar, Cotonou, Abidjan, Tema, and Lomé will be worse for them than for their remaining ECOWAS counterparts. For instance, almost 60% of Burkina Faso’s vegetable exports and 90% of its live animal exports go to Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Onions are one of Niger’s main exports, with Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Benin making up its main export markets.
In turn, the food insecurity of vulnerable populations in the AES countries will deteriorate. Already, the cost of a daily nutritious diet in these three countries is 110% higher than the daily minimum wage in the region. Since ECOWAS established a Regional Food Security Reserve in 2013 to pool cereal resources for countries in the region to respond to food crises, the three countries-along with Ghana and Nigeria-have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the Reserve.
Sahelexit: Economic Fallout as Burkina Faso, Mali & Niger Exit ECOWAS
Opportunities for Growth and Development
Intra-regional food trade should also be recognised as a catalyst for regional food production, rather than, as it is commonly understood, a factor that displaces food from surplus to deficit areas. Domestic food supply grows in response to expanding demand from regional markets, with trade acting as the connector. The spatial concentration of regional food flows also matters. While at the national level, certain regional food imports can appear to be of little significance, they can be concentrated in, and critical for, some areas.
Leveraging regional food production and benefiting from complementarities, regional trade offers West Africa’s consumers a wide range of affordable, nutritious foods, complementing national production and global import supply chains. By smoothing out fluctuations in seasonal food supply and buffering production shocks, intra-regional trade also helps stabilise food prices.
ECOWAS can play a central role in shifting toward a shared regional vision, aligning national strategies, and promoting policies that support regional integration.
The Role of ECOWAS
The ECOWAS can play a pivotal role in aligning national agricultural and food policies with a regional vision. Its convening power can strengthen collaboration between national governments, regional bodies and the private sector to make food sovereignty a shared regional goal.
The ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) is central to this effort. Adopted in 2005, it provides a comprehensive framework for agricultural development across member states, with the promotion of intra-regional food trade as one of its core goals. It was revised in 2015 with a Strategic Orientation Framework (2016-25), which also includes integration of the regional market as one of its strategic objectives.
Recommendations for the Future
To overcome these challenges and maintain steady progress, ECOWAS must focus on increased data sharing and collaboration among Member States. While the region has successfully harmonised trade policies, allowing Member States to enjoy preferential trade arrangements, deeper cooperation is needed to share trade data more effectively. Stronger collaboration between Member States and external partners will also help drive infrastructure development. Poor transport, electricity and water supply infrastructure have been cited as major bottlenecks to trade in the region. In addition, data considerations on carbon emissions and climate vulnerability must be incorporated into trade policies.
By aligning agricultural trade with climate adaptation goals, ECOWAS can ensure long-term sustainability while remaining competitive in global markets.
