Women play a fundamental role in intra-regional trade. They account for more than 70% of those involved in local or cross-border trade in West Africa. This strong presence of women in regional trade is a sign of the dynamism of the economy and trade in West Africa.
However, they face difficulties in accessing the information they need to make the most of business opportunities on local and regional markets, and are largely unfamiliar with customs procedures and other regulatory requirements on the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.
In order to provide an effective solution to these difficulties, the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) has supported the training of 150 women and young traders in cross-border trade, customs procedures and other regulatory requirements on the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.
The aim of the training was to enable traders to master customs procedures and optimise their knowledge of the corridor’s regulatory requirements.
In Aného, in the Lakes prefecture, as in Atakpamé in the Ogou, women traders
were followed by presentations on: (i) the issues and challenges of implementing the FTAA for women; (ii) the Guided Trade Initiative (GTI) and the FTAA trade documents; (iii) the organisational framework, rules of origin and procedures for clearing goods through customs; (iv) the FTAA protocol on women and young people in trade; (v) cross-border trade and the mechanism for eliminating non-tariff barriers (NTBs); (vi) cross-border trade and the facilities offered by the West African Association for Cross-Border Trade in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Products (АОСТАН).
This reinforcement will contribute to indicator R13.2 of component 3 relating to the “Number of farmers (value chain actors) having received goods or services to improve their marketing in the selected value chains”. In the long term, the activity could also contribute to ODP indicator 6 relating to the share of production subject to intra-regional trade in certain value chains (rice, soya, poultry).
