By Konrad Kodjo Djaisi
In a bid to improve trade in agricultural goods across the West Africa sub-region, the in-country ECOWAS Agricultural Trade (EAT) cross-border promotion ceremony was launched in Accra on November 29 at Legon University.
In March 2023, the EAT project was launched with an overall objective of improving institutional and technical capacities at the regional level and in beneficiary countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote’ d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and now Togo for increased intra-regional agricultural trade.
The component areas of the EAT-GIZ programme are policy harmonisation, trade facilitation, empowering traders and promoting cross-border agri-food trade, which all align with the aims and objectives for establishing ECOWAS as per Article 3 of the Revised Treaty.
According to Mr. Chris Mensah-Yawson-Directorate of Trade, ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, Nigeria, these ideals have guided the formulation of several community texts as well as implementation of a growing number of initiatives and projects by the ECOWAS Commission: such as the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, ECOWAS Common External Tariff (CET) and Free Movement of Persons Protocol among several others.
Also, relevant tools such as the Trade Obstacles Alert Mechanism (TOAM) and West African Competitiveness Observatory have been developed with the aim of reducing and ultimately eliminating the various barriers to trade and increasing export competitiveness.
Mensah-Yawson however indicated that the 2023 Comprehensive Africa agriculture development Programme (CAADP) Biennial review said no African country is on track to meet the Malabo Declaration by 2025 – though the agricultural sector recorded growth over the past two decades, with the gross domestic product (GDP) doubling between 2000 and 2021.
However, ECOWAS’s performance as reported under CAADP review cycles has consistently improved with Ghana as a key player. This notwithstanding, Ghana benefitted from 500 tonnes of cereal from the ECOWAS food reserve in 2024. It is therefore evident that agri-food trade in Ghana is far from being autonomous as it is embedded in a regional, even continental and global, value chain and is closely connected to several markets and value chain systems.
It is in view of this that the ECOWAS Commission has called on the Chamber of Agri-business in Ghana to leverage what the EAT-GIZ project has to offer, as well as the community texts and initiatives to increase participation in cross-border trade of agri-foods.
Mr. Mensah-Yawson notes that Ghana is strategically positioned as an access route to the coast and seaports by several Sahelian countries and is well situated along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor which sees a lot of trade.
He noted that the Commission is committed to supporting the private sector and MSMEs, including women-led and owned businesses, to take advantage of export trade. He added that agri-food trade is pivotal in creating employment, food security and economic resilience.
