The World Financial institution Group has warned that West Africa’s continued dependence on imported rice just isn’t solely draining billions of {dollars} from the area’s economies but additionally exposing international locations to elevated meals safety dangers.
Talking on the West Africa Rice Funding Roundtable in Accra, World Financial institution Group Vice President for Planetary Affairs Guangzhen Chen mentioned the area presently imports about 40% of the rice it consumes at a price of $5 billion a yr.
“This isn’t simply an financial challenge, it places the area in danger,” he advised members, lamenting the excessive costs West African international locations are paying for his or her dependence on imported rice.
Cheng argued that West Africa, with its wealthy arable land, water and farming inhabitants, ought to be capable to develop most of its staple meals at residence quite than remaining depending on worldwide markets. Current world worth will increase and fertilizer shortages present how harmful that dependence is, he defined.
Nevertheless, Chen was optimistic in regards to the efforts ECOWAS has launched to date to broaden rice manufacturing. “The ECOWAS Rice Roadmap gives a powerful basis. Rice Observatories are bettering knowledge and coordination. Nations have clear funding plans,” he mentioned, including, “What we’d like now could be implementation and financing at scale.”
He pointed to the World Financial institution’s AgriConnect initiative, launched in October 2025, as a automobile for change. This system goals to assist 300 million smallholder farmers throughout Africa enhance their livelihoods and farming programs by 2030.
Mr. Chen emphasised that rising rice manufacturing alone just isn’t sufficient, explaining that coverage reforms, roads, storage, financing, non-public funding, and market entry have to work collectively to attain the meant outcomes.
To help this, the World Financial institution is committing $1.2 billion by way of the West Africa Meals Methods Resilience Program (FSRP), which is predicted to achieve eight international locations and roughly 3.2 million folks. Chen added that an extra $300 million to $400 million might circulation into the rice worth chain of Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
Nonetheless, he says one of many largest hurdles is straightforward: farmers cannot get credit score. Banks deal with agriculture as too dangerous.
“The reply is to scale back threat,” Chen mentioned, pointing to instruments similar to mortgage ensures and blended finance. “We’ve seen these outcomes, and the problem now could be to roll them out sooner and extra extensively.”
Past finance, he referred to as for funding in warehouses, factories and transportation networks. “Rising extra rice does not work if you do not have a spot to retailer it or a option to get it to market,” he says.
With donor budgets underneath strain and personal traders remaining cautious, Cheng urged the federal government to grab this second.
“Everybody talks about meals safety,” he mentioned. “However the window to really do one thing about it’s now.”
