Border Reforms are Easing Travel for West Africa’s Women Traders
ECOWAS is rolling out gender-smart border reforms, legal clinics, mobile tools, and simpler rules, to curb harassment and open new opportunities for the women powering West Africa’s cross-border trade.
Bonface Orucho, bird story agency
At the Aflao–Lomé border crossing between Ghana and Togo, the line of women carrying tomatoes, textiles, and household goods snakes past customs booths and into a dimly lit corridor.
For years, women traders here have described the same routine: long waits, confusing paperwork, and the risk of losing cash or goods to “informal charges.”
Now, flyers pinned to the wall advertise a new legal clinic. Traders are told they can seek help if officials harass them or if they are asked for unreceipted payments.
Some carry a phone app that explains in plain language which forms they need and what official fees are required.
For women like Ama, a tomato seller from Ghana’s Volta region, that small shift feels like the start of a new trading environment.
“I no longer panic about what I don’t know,” she explained in one of the training sessions organized by border authorities. “At least now we are told the rules and where to go when something is wrong.”
Ama is among thousands of women who form the backbone of West Africa’s small-scale cross-border trade.
According to the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC), women make up the majority of informal traders in the region, with some estimates placing their share at about 80% in small-scale cross-border trade.
Yet these women face harassment, opaque procedures, and a lack of facilities, factors that have long kept their commerce risky, costly, and invisible to policymakers.
To change that picture, ECOWAS and the International Trade Centre (ITC) have launched a package of “gender-smart” reforms.
At a February 2025 workshop in Abidjan, the two institutions, alongside partners endorsed a set of solutions: legal clinics at border posts, gender-sensitivity training for customs and transport officials, simplified declaration forms for small consignments, and mobile, visual tools to guide traders through procedures.
“These measures are not just about fairness, they are about unlocking Africa’s trade potential,” said Sandra Oulate, Director of the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre, at the Abidjan meeting.
“We need to ensure regional trade policy becomes a tool for inclusive growth, where women are not just participants, but empowered leaders.”
The reforms build on a growing recognition that informal cross-border trade is central to food security and local economies.
Women traders are often the ones moving tomatoes, maize, fish, and textiles across nearby frontiers. When borders are unsafe or costly, the price of food rises, households suffer, and regional markets fragment.
Yet the barriers are persistent. A 2024 survey by the Trade Facilitation West Africa (TFWA) program covering six major corridors found that more than 40% of traders had been exposed to bribery.
Many rated border facilities, from toilets to lighting, as “very inadequate.” And over 90% reported limited or no knowledge of basic trading rules.
The consequences extend beyond individual livelihoods.
According to the World Bank, full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could raise Africa’s income by about US$450 billion by 2035.
However, without targeted reforms, women traders who dominate small-scale trade may remain locked out of those benefits.
That is why regional institutions are pushing hard to align border reforms with the AfCFTA’s Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade, adopted in February 2024.
The protocol obliges African states to eliminate non-tariff barriers that disproportionately affect women, establish national focal points, and even develop a regulation to grant preferential market access for women and youth traders.
It also formally defines “small-scale cross-border trade,” a first in continental trade law.
For policy experts, this convergence is significant.
“The AfCFTA protocol provides the legal backbone, but real change happens at the checkpoint,” according to Salimata Thiam, an EGDC representative.
“A simplified declaration form in a woman’s language, or a legal officer who listens to her case, does more to build trust than a treaty alone.”
On the ground, some of these measures are already being tested.
In 2024, ECOWAS and TFWA organized caravans along the busy Abidjan–Lagos corridor, staging community town halls to explain cross-border rules and to listen to traders’ concerns.
In Ghana, the International Organization for Migration runs trainings on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEAH), equipping women traders with reporting channels.
Civil society groups are also stepping in.
In June 2025, Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) launched a project along the Ghana–Togo border, offering legal aid and rights awareness for women agricultural traders. The initiative complements ECOWAS’s legal clinics by providing direct case handling and advocacy.
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At a July 2025 closing ceremony of the ECOWAS awareness caravan in Lagos, ECOWAS officials reaffirmed that women are central to West Africa’s regional market.
According to Fatou Sow Sarr, the Human Development Commissioner, women’s trade has too often been sidelined in policy, despite making up the bulk of informal commerce along key corridors.
She urged member states to align reforms with women’s everyday realities.
According to Thiam, these reforms matter because “women traders often lack alternatives.”
“With limited access to formal finance, they rely on daily turnover from border sales to feed families and keep children in school. When harassment or confiscation wipes out their income, the shock ripples across entire households.”
Yet challenges remain.
Many traders still avoid official posts altogether, crossing rivers or dirt paths at dawn to bypass bureaucracy and bribes.
“That is why harassment is often under-reported in surveys, especially when the abuse is sexual. And without sustained funding, legal clinics and mobile apps could fizzle after pilot stages,” Thiam shared.
“That is why accountability will be key.”
ECOWAS officials have pledged to track key indicators, from the number of women assisted by legal clinics to the number of border officers trained in gender sensitivity. They are also working with ITC and WILDAF to log and resolve complaints, turning anecdotal reports of harassment into actionable cases.
Beyond West Africa, the reforms are being closely watched by other regions.
The East African Community has long piloted Simplified Trade Regimes, while COMESA has introduced gender desks at selected posts.
“If ECOWAS succeeds in scaling its clinics, forms, and mobile tools, it could set a model for making AfCFTA commitments tangible at borders across the continent,” Thiam explained.
bird story agency
