• 85% of West Africa’s $10B food trade is informal, per OECD.

• Staples like cereals and tubers dominate informal trade, missing from official data.

• Informality distorts trade planning and hinders ECOWAS agricultural policy coordination.

Nearly 85% of food trade between West African countries occurs outside formal channels, unrecorded by customs or administrative authorities, according to a June 2025 report from the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The study, titled “Intra-regional Food Trade in West Africa: New Evidence, New Perspectives,” estimates the actual value of these exchanges at nearly $10 billion annually. This figure is six times higher than official data recorded between 2014 and 2022.

Based on a 2014 survey, the OECD reported that Nigeria, West Africa's largest market, traded $3 billion worth of food with its neighbors, with half of these flows going unrecorded through official channels.

This analysis provides a new perspective on intra-regional food trade in West Africa and highlights disparities in the types of agricultural and food products exchanged informally. The OECD notes that official statistics primarily capture trade in processed or standardized products, such as edible oils, industrial food products, coffee, cocoa, tea, or spices. In contrast, a significant portion of staple foods and everyday food items go undetected.

For example, nearly 95% of trade in roots and tubers (cassava, yam), 84% of cereals, 72% of vegetables, 62% of fruits, and more than half of animal protein are not recorded in official statistics.

This is not the first study to question the reliability of trade statistics and the lack of understanding of intra-regional trade in West Africa. The 2024 edition of the Africa Agricultural Trade Monitor (AATM), an annual report analyzing agricultural trade trends in Africa published on the ReSAKSS platform, also aligned with the OECD’s findings and highlighted "significant levels" of informal trade in the sub-region.

Based on a survey conducted in Burkina Faso, the AATM report revealed that in 2018, the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) estimated the country’s imports of 178 agricultural products from the nine ECOWAS countries at over $19 million. At the same time, the Comtrade database estimated those imports at $334,000.

According to the AATM, informal trade in West Africa is primarily driven by cross-border ethnic networks and the absence of customs duties on local products, which reduces the incentive to formalize transactions. Additionally, non-tariff barriers, trade bans, and border harassment push actors to avoid formal channels.

The underestimation of the actual scale of food trade between West African countries distorts assessments of the need for trade, logistics, and customs infrastructure. It also hinders the coordination of agricultural policies within ECOWAS, particularly for staple products essential to food security, such as cereals and tubers, most of which circulate outside formal networks.

The OECD emphasizes that "the lack of data on these trade flows obscures how much they contribute to food and nutrition security and distorts policy and crisis response efforts. A more robust understanding of intra-regional trade, backed up by accurate and timely data, is essential for designing effective policies that enhance food supply diversity, accessibility and price stability."