Policy Interventions

Policy Constraints

A major cause of the high cost of doing business in West Africa is an enabling environment characterized by unsuitable policies or by policy misapplication. After monitoring the policy environment through dialogue with industry actors and their various organizations at both regional and national levels, ATP studied the incidence of trade policy barriers against the movement of its selected agricultural products across the region. This study gave ATP a comprehensive overview of the obstacles to trade along selected corridors as well as insight into the gap between policy and practice.

ATP/E-ATP Policy Priorities

• The numerous ECOWAS policies relating to intra-regional trade in the ATP/E-ATP agricultural products include:
• Agriculture (ECOWAS Agricultural Policy – ECOWAP);
• Trade and customs (ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme – ETLS);
• Transport (ECOWAS inter-state road transport and transit conventions; ECOWAS Brown Card scheme); and
• Money and payments (ECOWAS single currency program, regional clearing arrangement).

ATP/E-ATP will facilitate the elimination of duties and taxes, and non-tariff barriers, both of which are examples of trade and transport policy barriers.

1. Duties and taxes
   
   1. Disguised export and import duties (high statistical tax, development levy on livestock export, import duty and ‘crossing fee’ on goods in transit).
2. Non-tariff barriers
   
   1. Seasonal trade restrictions (cereal export ban)
   2. Export authorization (approval required for export of cattle)
   3. Illegal transit procedures (controls and charges in spite of valid ECOWAS Interstate Road Transit Convention logbook)
   4. Illegal roadblocks and checkpoints (harassment and extortion at numerous police, customs and gendarme control points which far surpass the number authorized by ECOWAS to be in place between the border and capital city).

ATP/E-ATP Action Plans on Policy Issues

ATP/E-ATP work to address identified policy challenges. ATP/E-ATP is in partnership with various stakeholders to ensure that national and regional policies serve traders and transporters of ATP/E-ATP products most effectively. In many instances, ATP/E-ATP initiatives serve as starting points that get replicated or expanded to make ECOWAS and UEMOA policies on trade barriers more operational at the regional level.