- West Africa Targets Rice Self-Sufficiency by 2035 as Leaders Push Investment Drive
West African governments, development partners and private sector actors have called for a major investment push into the region’s rice sector as demand continues to outpace local production.
The call was made at the close of the two-day West Africa Rice Investment Roundtable in Accra, organised under the AgriConnect Initiative and convened by ECOWAS, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank, with the Government of Ghana as host.
The event brought together ministers, 15 country delegations, investors, agribusiness leaders and technical experts to mobilise financial and technical partnerships for National Rice Investment Action Plans across the region.
Participants said stronger investment was needed if West Africa is to improve food security, reduce rice imports, create jobs and move closer to regional rice self-sufficiency by 2035.
The roundtable focused on practical investment opportunities across the rice value chain, including irrigation, seed systems, mechanisation, milling, storage, transport and trade.
A key outcome was the presentation of a regional pipeline of projects anchored in national rice strategies. Participants also called for improved policy coordination, stronger public-private partnerships and risk-sharing tools to turn investment plans into bankable projects.
The meeting also reinforced the need for stronger regional collaboration among governments, regional institutions, development finance institutions and the private sector.
Participants backed follow-up through regional coordination platforms, including the ECOWAS Rice Observatory, and called for momentum toward a Regional Rice Investment Compact to guide the next phase of implementation.
Speaking at the event, Vice-President Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang said the region’s rice challenge goes beyond production and must be treated as a major economic transformation issue.
“The challenge before us is not just about growing more rice, but also about mobilising the scale of capital required to transform agriculture from a subsistence sector to commercial production, and from fragmented production to integrated value chains,” she said.
She added that rice must be viewed as a strategic economic asset because of its potential to create jobs for young people, raise farmer incomes and strengthen economic resilience against future global shocks.
President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Alieu Touray, said the regional ambition is to build competitive, inclusive and sustainable agri-food systems that support food sovereignty and shared prosperity.
“Our ambition is clear: to build more competitive, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems that strengthen food sovereignty, create economic opportunities, contribute to shared prosperity, and progressively achieve regional rice self-sufficiency by 2035,” he said.
He said the roundtable must serve as a catalyst for action by strengthening investor confidence, accelerating financing for bankable opportunities and building a more resilient regional rice economy.
World Bank Group Vice-President for Planet, Guangzhe Chen, said West Africa has both the project pipeline and leadership needed to accelerate transformation in the rice sector.
“Ghana’s AgriConnect Compact demonstrates how this agenda can deliver jobs, strengthen resilience, and drive inclusive growth at scale,” he said.
On the sidelines of the roundtable, Ghana launched its AgriConnect Compact, a country-led initiative supported by the World Bank Group.
The Compact places agriculture at the centre of Ghana’s economic transformation, job creation and resilience agenda. It is expected to create more than 2.6 million jobs, improve food and nutrition security for nearly 3 million people and attract a US$3.5 billion investment programme over five years.
The initiative will focus on priority value chains including rice, maize, cocoa, oil palm and poultry, while supporting reforms aimed at improving productivity and attracting private investment.
It will also promote irrigation, mechanisation, climate-smart agriculture and digital innovation as part of a systems-based approach to modern, market-led agriculture.
For Ghana and the wider West African region, the rice agenda has become both a food security imperative and an industrial opportunity.
If properly financed and coordinated, the sector could reduce import dependence, strengthen rural incomes, create youth employment and open new opportunities in processing, logistics, machinery services and agribusiness.
But the success of the initiative will depend on whether governments can move beyond declarations and deliver the financing, infrastructure, policy consistency and private-sector confidence needed to transform rice from a staple food challenge into a regional economic growth platform.
