An Analysis of ECOWAS - EU Agricultural Trade Flows

ECOWAS¿EU agricultural trade flows are driven by a significant number of inter-related economic, social and political factors. Some of these factors include, inter alia, the level and nature of support and protection provided to agriculture in both ECOWAS and EU member states; the increasing prominence of technical regulations, private standards and other sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures; and lack of capacities to strengthen agricultural systems in ECOWAS members. These factors are mostly and naturally external to ECOWAS-member countries, though they have far reaching implications for their changing trade patterns, which will determine the effectiveness of their agricultural trade and development policy interventions.A thorough understanding of these factors is, therefore, critical in the light of the strategic role that agriculture plays within the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme(CAADP) and the sub-regional ECOWAP Frameworks on one hand; and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the other hand.It documents innovative policy interventions could be adopted in order to tackle the challenges bedeviling the agricultural trade sector in particular.