Abstract

The study analyzed agricultural product trade data to ascertain the extent of involvement of ECOWAS in community trade between 2013 and 2017. The extent to which members fulfilled the regional trade co-operation policy objective of expanding the volume of intra-community trade is gauged by computed trade indices. Each index measures intra-community trade as a share of total trade, and takes values between 0 and 1. The value is 0, if trade is truly intra-community carried out by all or most members; and 1, if trade is inter-regional, most trade being carried out by few community members. Value of annual index were influenced by cases of none, under or over reporting by member nations. Analysis revealed that intra-community trade occurred more in animal than food products, while vegetable products accounted for less. It is recommended that ECOWAS member nations should seek and utilizing foreign direct investment in development of agricultural sector to improve value chain in addition to increasing and sustaining intra-community trade volume. Besides, reports of intra-community exports and imports of agricultural products should be accurate, and no member should import from other regions where sub-community members are suppliers. Keywords: Agricultural Product Sub-sections, ECOWAS, Intra-Community Trade, Extent. DOI : 10.7176/DCS/9-1-08

Highlights

  • The broad objective of this study is to evaluate Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) members’ extent of trade in agricultural product subsections for the period 2013 to 2017

  • From the indices of table 1, it can be deduced that ECOWAS members engaged in intra-community trade more in 2017, while the nations account for lesser trade in 2014

  • The computed intra-community trade indices for total agricultural trade for the years under review show that there were no intra-community trade in the year 2014. This means that the nations of ECOWAS did not deliver on the policy objective of expanding trade for the year

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Summary

Introduction

Sequel to the call by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) heads of state summit on all its member states to form regional groupings for the purpose of accelerating their economic development, the treaty establishing ECOWAS was signed in Lagos Nigeria. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional organization of 15 West African countries established on 28 May 1975. There are currently 15 member states in the Economic Community of West African States. The founding members of ECOWAS were: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Cabo Verde Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Burkina Faso (https://www.abuja-ng.com/ecowas-secretariat.html). Member countries making up ECOWAS are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’ Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo (http://www.ecowas.int/about-ecowas/basic-information/)

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