Context
The Trade Facilitation West Africa (TFWA) Program is an initiative supported by multiple development partners (EU, Netherlands, USAID, and Germany) to improve trade facilitation in West Africa. The program focuses its activities along six major trade corridors in the region:
• Abidjan – Ouagadougou • Lomé – Ouagadougou • Tema – Ouagadougou • Cotonou – Niamey • Dakar – Bamako • Lagos – Kano – Niamey
The TFWA Program’s main objective is to reduce the time and cost of trade along these priortiy corridors.
On the Abidjan - Ouagadougou corridor, the program aims to:
Improve and implement more e cient trade facilitation measures while strengthening private sector commitment
Improve bilateral border agency operations and coordination
Improve the movement of goods along these key corridors while promoting containerized trade
Improve economic empowerment for small traders and other key stakeholders, in particular women, by implementing trade facilitation reforms that reduce barriers to trade Key information on the Abidjan - Ouagadougou Corridor
• The total length of the corridor is about 1,263 kms, of which approximately 653 kms are in Côte d'Ivoire.
• A metric gauge railway line approximately 1,238 kms long serves the Abidjan-Ouagadougou corridor. The average split between road and rail transport is approximately 75% for road and 25% for rail.
• There are approximately 20 checkpoints (police, customs, gendarmerie and others) along the Abidjan - Ouagadougou corridor. The control times per body are: 18 for police, 1 for customs, 15 for gendarmerie, and 3 for others.
• Looking at the time it take to cross borders, import procedures are heavier in Côte d'Ivoire than in Guinea Bissau and Senegal. Nine export documents are required, 25 days of export time are required, and the export cost per container is 1,390 USD (the same as the deflated export cost per container).
• The TFWA Program is a five-year (September 2018 - June 2024), 75 million USD, multi-donor initiative. Partners
The TFWA Program is managed by the World Bank Group and the German Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ) – the program's implementing partners– with strategic oversight and guidance provided by a Steering Committee, chaired by the ECOWAS Commission and supported by the UEMOA Commission as deputy chair. The program will also work with governments, private sector associations, and relevant NGOs/CSOs.
Main TFWA Program Activities Along the Corridor:
• Support and strengthen the NTFCs in Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire • Build gender capacities of NTFC members and mainstream gender into the functioning of the NTFCs in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso • Improve Côte d'Ivoire's customs risk management system • Introduce the electronic customs clearance system, the interconnection of the Sylvie-Sydonia systems, in Burkina Faso • Support collaboration and coordination of customs and other cross-border agency processes and procedures between Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso • Support the establishment of the Observatoire de la Célérité des Opérations de Dédouanement (OCOD) in Burkina Faso • Improve the implementation of the existing road transport customs interconnectivity automation and extend it to rail transport between Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso
For more information on the TFWA program, please visit www.tfwa.ecowas.int or contact [email protected]