35 Agricultural Trade and Development Experts from Chad, Ghana, Niger, Sierra Leone, Togo, and ECOWAS Commission assembled in Lomé from February 24 to 28, 2025, to analyze and re-port on 2024 data on trade flows in agricultural products in the region.
The meeting is part of the implementation of Component 3 of the West Africa Food System Re-silience Programme (FSRP), which focuses on the integration of regional food markets and trade. Within the framework, an analysis tool, the ECOWAS Agricultural Trade and Markets Scorecard (EATM-Scorecard) has been developed with the support of AKADEMIYA2063 to facili-tate the documentation of intra-regional trade in agri-food products, identify gaps in trade pol-icies and strengthen their implementation at regional level. Through this tool, ECOWAS aims to provide decision-makers with strategic data to guide policy reforms and promote intra-regional trade.
Since February 2024, seven countries – Ghana, Niger, Sierra Leone, Chad, Togo, Burkina Faso, and Mali began implementing the Scorecard. Data collection has been completed in Ghana, Niger, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Togo, marking a crucial step toward the data analysis and vali-dation phase of the project.
The workshop was an opportunity to provide support to the national technical teams. Specifi-cally, participants assessed the data collection process and analyzed the data to identify gaps and missing information, familiarize themselves with the Scorecard platform, and appropriate data analysis tools developed.
In parallel sessions, country and ECOWAS communication specialists worked on adapting the communication strategy and tools linked to the initiative.
The entire process was conducted with oversight from the ECOWAS regional Scorecard team comprising experts from the Trade Directorate, the Agriculture and Rural Development Direc-torate, and the Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food (RAAF/ARAA).
Speaking on behalf of the ECOWAS Commission at the opening of the workshop, Mr. Christo-pher Mensah-Yawson, Program Officer for Trade Development at the Trade Directorate and Manager of the Scorecard at the regional level, stressed the importance of this tool in helping to facilitate intra-regional trade in West Africa, which is still weak between countries, and called for the extension of this tool to other ECOWAS countries not yet involved in the FSRP.
This initiative represents a decisive step towards better integration of agricultural markets and strengthening agri-food trade policies in West Africa. In addition, the Scorecard shall improve the communication of data on agricultural trade, with recommendations for countries to en-hance their performance in the context of agricultural trade.
The first report to be generated using the Scorecard is expected to be published in June 2025 in recognition of 50 years of the existence of ECOWAS
Subsequent to the workshop, the country teams will organize national workshops to validate the Scorecard implementation process and data with the support of the regional team.
