The fiscal federalism literature, which precedes the environmental federalism literature, provides additional insights (see Weingast, 2007 for a review). One factor highlighted in this literature, in addition to economies of scale and spill-over, is the role of differences in local preferences, which may provide a rationale for decentralization. When applied to the question of regional biotechnology regulation, this argument suggests that the transfer of regulatory authority to a supranational body is less justified if there are strong national differences in people’s preferences regarding biotechnology. The extent of such differences, however, is an empirical question. The farmers’ organizations and civil society organizations interviewed for this study revealed differences across the WAEMU countries in terms of positions regarding Bt cotton. This may partly be linked to the fact that the political systems in the WAEMU region differ in the scope they provide for independent civil society organizations to emerge and formulate their positions. Stakeholder information is not necessarily representative of the population as a whole. In the future, the inclusion of biotechnology questions into representative surveys, such as the Afrobarometer surveys,21 might provide valuable representative information on public opinions and on the opinions of different groups (farmers, consumers) regarding biotechnology.22 This will only hold true if the respondents already have knowledge of biotechnology, so the future inclusion of questions on biotechnology might help establish the extent to which people are informed about biotechnology, and which sources of information they have used. Both proponents and opponents of biotechnology in West Africa have engaged in media campaigns, but it is unclear to what extent information from both sides has reached consumers and farmers on a broad scale.23 Table 3 summarizes some major insights derived from the environmental and fiscal federalism literature, and their implications for biotechnology regulation. The major conclusion is that this literature suggests a need for regional coordination, but it does not in itself provide a rationale for centralized decision-making on biotechnology regulation. The literature draws attention to the fact that centralized decision-making may lead to regulatory standards that are, from an efficiency perspective, either too high or too low, especially in the face of national preference differences with regard to the environment and technology. This disadvantage must be weighed against the cost of controlling cross-border movement of GMOs, which can be reduced through a centralized regulatory system.

21 The Afrobaromenter project conducts comparative series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, markets and civil society in Africa. See http://www.afrobarometer.org/. 22 The Eurobarometer survey may serve as an example. An expert group of researchers from different European countries formulates a set of questions on biotechnology that is regularly included into the Eurobarometer survey, thus making it possible to track cross-country differences in public perceptions on biotechnology and their changes over time. This survey shows considerable cross-country differences in public opinion (Gaskell et al., 2006). The latest round of the Afrobarometer survey covered 18 countries, including Benin, Ghana Mali, Nigeria and Senegal in West Africa (Afrobarometer Network, 2006). 23 If the level of information is low, an opinion survey obviously has little value because the answers may only reflect the type of information provided to the respondent.

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