West African project - Consultative meeting with the World Bank

The regional project in West Africa entitled: "Facilitation of transit, transport and trade in West Africa for better value chain participation" was approved by the Enhanced Integrated Framework in June 2021. This consultative meeting was organized with the World Bank with the aim to provide technical updates on the implementation of Trade Facilitation West Africa (TFWA) Program to articulate better the planned synergistic joint activities.

This consultative meeting brought together technical experts from World Bank working within the framework of the TFWA program, on the following topics: transport policies in West Africa, cross-border customs cooperation, inter-state road transit, and containerization.

The work plan of the TFWA and that of UNCTAD's West Africa regional project were compared in order to identify possible areas of cooperation, as well as to analyze the status of technical specifics in the project's beneficiary countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

This meeting raised technical questions on the above topics and led the World Bank and UNCTAD to plan additional meetings with specific TFWA teams to implement cooperation strategies.