The Protein Sovereignty Index

Regional assessment

West Africa (excl. Nigeria)

We assess West Africa as Dependent (43.8). The small pelagic fishery is where the system actually binds: fish supplies close to half of animal protein consumption in the coastal states,[9] the round sardinella stock is under what FAO's own working group calls very strong overexploitation,[8] and Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia have spent a decade converting that stock into fishmeal for foreign aquaculture.[17][18] The contrast between the two halves of the assessment is stark: the region grows most of its own calories with almost no imported feed or fertiliser, far exceeding the Gulf Cooperation Council's self-sufficiency, and yet 41.78 million people were already in food crisis in an ordinary quarter of 2025[11] and a population-weighted 60.8 per cent of the region could not afford a healthy diet in 2024.[42]

Covers: Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, Mauritania

The protein system

Two hundred and twenty-two million people[7] eat from three largely domestic systems and two imported ones. Sahelian pastoralism carries 69 million cattle, concentrated in Niger at 20.4 million head, Mali at 14.0 million and Burkina Faso at 10.3 million.[4] Rainfed cropping delivers roughly 48 million tonnes of cereals a year on the most recent GIEWS assessments, led by Mali at 10.4 million tonnes, Ghana at 6.2 million and Niger at 5.9 million,[12] supplemented by cassava, yam, cowpea and groundnut. Artisanal capture fisheries land 2.73 million tonnes, about 12.3 kilogrammes a head, with Mauritania at 640,322 tonnes, Senegal at 500,077 and Ghana at 496,159.[2]

The imported systems are rice and wheat. Senegal imports 1.66 million tonnes of milled rice against 645,000 tonnes of domestic production,[14] Côte d'Ivoire a forecast 1.7 million tonnes, Guinea 1.15 million and Ghana around 950,000.[15][16] Wheat is grown nowhere in commercial quantity: all of Ghana's 1.09 million tonnes in calendar 2025 was imported.[13]

The shape of the system is unusual. Per-capita protein supply runs from 45.0 grams a day in Liberia and 52.1 in Guinea-Bissau to 92.6 in Burkina Faso, against an African average of 65.7,[1] and undernourishment reaches 35.5 per cent in Liberia.[6] What protein there is arrives almost entirely from rangeland, rain and seawater; FAO's earlier estimates put the share of dietary protein from fish at 63 per cent in Sierra Leone and Ghana.[31] Aquaculture, the growth route taken everywhere else in the developing world, produced 159,676 tonnes in 2024, 5.5 per cent of the region's fish output, 76 per cent of it in Ghana.[3]

Durable domestic capacity: 42

Quantitative score 47, adjusted down 5 points

We score capacity at 47 before adjustment. The domestic base is real: cereal output above the five-year average in fourteen of the fifteen members, Cabo Verde's meagre maize crop being the exception,[12] with 69 million cattle[4] and 2.73 million tonnes of wild fish[2] making a protein system a trade embargo could not switch off. What fails is level and durability. Per-capita protein supply is below requirement across most of the coastal belt,[1] wheat capacity is zero[13] and rice deficits are structural.[14][15] Most seriously, the fishery carrying the animal protein is being drawn down: Ghana's small pelagic landings had fallen to under 10 per cent of their 1992 level by 2023, across 12,000 canoes supporting more than 100,000 fishers.[21]

We deduct 5 points for active conflict degrading nominal capacity, taking the pillar to 42. Mali's rice area fell 13 per cent in MY2024/25, with declines of 56 per cent in Gao and 35 per cent in Mopti, partly because insecurity kept farmers off their land.[15] Burkina Faso holds around 2.1 million displaced people, and blockaded towns have farmland their residents cannot reach.[33] The statistics report above-average harvests; the access picture does not.

Resource headroom: 47

Quantitative score 54, adjusted down 7 points

We score headroom at 54 before adjustment, the pillar most at odds with the region's poverty. The protein mix is close to feed-free: Ghana's entire feed and residual corn demand is 565,000 tonnes against 6.2 million tonnes of cereal output.[13] Fertiliser application runs at 0.77 kilogrammes per hectare in Niger, 2.7 in Sierra Leone and 8.5 in Mali, so yields of 577 kilogrammes per hectare in Niger and 1,198 in Burkina Faso sit far below the 2,688 Ghana already achieves.[7] The coastal belt is water-rich, with Liberia at 37,221 cubic metres of renewable internal freshwater per person per year and Guinea at 16,080.[7] On land and water the growth room is genuine.

Three things consume it. The Sahel is water-poor, at 82 cubic metres per person in Mauritania and 138 in Niger.[7] The marine base has passed its peak, with three of eight assessed small pelagic stocks overexploited and a roughly 60 per cent cut in fishing mortality recommended for round sardinella;[8] the EU's own Mauritanian access protocol cut the allowable small pelagic catch from 300,000 to 225,000 tonnes.[19] And demography outruns yields, with population growing 3.28 per cent a year in Niger and 2.94 in Mali;[7] FAO expects African per-capita aquatic food consumption to keep falling because supply cannot match population growth of over 25 per cent to 2032.[9][10]

We apply minus 7. The resource with immediate protein leverage is being converted from a food stock into an export feedstock, which no land or water statistic captures. Mauritanian fishmeal output peaked at 128,789 tonnes in 2020, more than half the total pelagic catch went to fishmeal plants in 2021, and it takes roughly five kilogrammes of raw fish to make one kilogramme of meal.[17][39] FAO's working group has had to recommend that Mauritania's ban on using sardinella for fishmeal be extended across the whole sub-region.[8] A second correction applies here too: a material share of the credited yield and fertiliser-gap headroom sits in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, roughly a third of the region's population, where active conflict already recorded under capacity is denying farmers access to their own land, and where the capital and input-distribution networks needed to close the gap to Ghana's 2,688 kilogrammes per hectare[7] do not currently reach insecure areas.

Testing the credited headroom directly against land and capital data confirms the constraint reaches beyond the conflict states. Land equipped for irrigation covers 1.75 per cent of regional cropland in 2024, barely above the 1.51 per cent of 2000 despite cropland itself growing 52 per cent over the same period; Mauritania's equipped area has not moved in a quarter-century, and only Ghana shows a large gain, from 0.56 to 3.01 per cent.[59] Agricultural credit orientation sits below parity in every one of the twelve members with a FAOSTAT series, and is falling in the largest of them: Niger's orientation index has dropped from 0.14 in 1991 to 0.035 in 2024, a three-quarters collapse, and Ghana's from 0.43 to 0.23 even as its total credit pool grew.[60] Guinea, Mauritania and Sierra Leone report no agriculture-specific credit series at all. Cropland per person fell 21 per cent regionally between 2000 and 2024 as population growth of 92 per cent outran a genuine 52 per cent expansion in cultivated area, falling in eleven of fifteen members and most sharply in Mauritania and Niger, the two states the essay already flags as fertiliser-gap-heavy.[59] The region's two clearest flagship irrigation programmes underdeliver against their own founding ambitions: Mali's Office du Niger, established in 1932 with plans for up to 1.85 million hectares, has reached roughly 100,000 after 94 years, though it still produces about 40 per cent of Mali's rice; and Ghana's USD 993 million Pwalugu dam has not broken ground on its 25,000-hectare irrigation component six years after its funded start date, its contractor having left the site.[61] Real counter-evidence survives alongside this: cropland per person rose in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, The Gambia and Sierra Leone, and Ghana's irrigated share nearly quintupled, so mobilisation is not zero. That potential is disclosed here rather than scored.

Import exposure: 43

Quantitative score 48, adjusted down 5 points

We score imports at 48 before adjustment. West Africa sits at the inverse of the Gulf's position. Its routes are the least chokepoint-exposed in the index: food arrives across the open Atlantic into Dakar, Nouakchott, Conakry, Abidjan, Tema, Lomé and Cotonou with no Hormuz, Suez, Bab el-Mandeb, Malacca or Panama transit, and the staple base is domestic. The exposure sits in two commodities and, in effect, one supplier. Senegal took 58 per cent of its rice from India and 17 per cent from Thailand in trade year 2024, and India's September 2022 broken-rice restrictions are the live precedent for what one supplier decision does to a 1.66 million tonne import book.[14] Wheat is imported in full, with 77 per cent of Ghana's 1.09 million tonnes from Turkey and Canada alone;[13] Russia shipped 1.7 million tonnes to the wider region in a season.[34] Food reaches 37.9 per cent of merchandise imports in Niger,[7] where GDP per capita of USD 730 leaves no capacity to outbid anyone.

We deduct 5 points, taking the pillar to 43. Within a single year the region converted three landlocked members' import corridors from an internal-market matter into a foreign-trade matter with no replacement institution. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger formally left ECOWAS on 29 January 2025,[29][30] imposed a 0.5 per cent levy on ECOWAS-origin goods, and Niger has banned cereal exports outside the Alliance of Sahel States since October 2024,[12] while all three remain wholly dependent on coastal ports they no longer share a customs union with.

Upstream dependence: 53

Quantitative score 58, adjusted down 5 points

We score upstream at 58 before adjustment, the region's highest pillar. The incumbent system barely touches imported inputs: rangeland ruminants eat rangeland,[4] artisanal fisheries need fuel and nets rather than compound feed,[2] and pulses fix their own nitrogen. Regional fertiliser imports of roughly one million tonnes in 2022, up from 345,016 tonnes a year in the 1990s,[26] are trivial against a continent applying 18 kilogrammes per hectare against the Abuja Declaration target of 50.[27]

We deduct 5 points, taking the pillar to 53, because this independence is involuntary rather than substitutive. Every route out of 577 kilogrammes per hectare in Niger[7] or a 5.5 per cent aquaculture share[3] runs through imported urea, compound feed, fingerlings and day-old chicks, with no domestic manufacturing base beyond Senegalese phosphate rock; Nigerian urea capacity, the obvious substitute, sits inside a separately scored entity. Benin's fertiliser dependency on Russia and Ukraine combined exceeds 45 per cent, and urea prices rose about 4.5-fold after 2020.[26] Ghana pays around 30 per cent more for imported feed, faces a shortfall of some 50 million fingerlings a year and produces tilapia at USD 1.51 per kilogramme against USD 0.78 to 1.29 in the leading producers.[38]

Access and affordability: 37

Quantitative score 37, no adjustment applied

We score access at 37, positioned by the affordability indicator: a population-weighted 60.8 per cent of the fifteen states' population could not afford a healthy diet in 2024.[42] The range across members is wide. Niger is the region's worst at 86.7 per cent unaffordable, Ghana 65.8 per cent and Guinea-Bissau 65.5 per cent,[42] while The Gambia at 45.0 per cent, Senegal at 47.4 per cent and Cote d'Ivoire at 48.7 per cent are the best placed.[42]

Positioning within the band is pulled upward by the other three indicators. Weighted prevalence of undernourishment is a comparatively moderate 11.8 per cent, with Senegal at 5.1 per cent, Ghana at 6.3 per cent and Togo at 9.1 per cent offsetting Liberia at 35.5 per cent.[6] Weighted child stunting of 25.9 per cent sits below the Africa-wide average of 30.7 per cent, with Senegal, Ghana, The Gambia and Mauritania all under 18 per cent against Niger at 47.7 per cent, the region's worst.[43][44] Working the other way, domestic food price volatility is severe: Ghana's food inflation swung from 27.8 per cent in December 2024[57] to 26.5 per cent in March 2025 to 2.3 per cent in March 2026[58] and 3.3 per cent in May 2026,[45] and Niger's millet and sorghum prices moved 15 to 35 per cent within five months of 2025 alone.[12] Physical access is degraded by conflict across Mali, Burkina Faso and western Niger[33] and by landlocked dependence on coastal corridors that the AES exit from ECOWAS has complicated.[29][30] No further adjustment applies: the other indicators already point the same direction as the affordability indicator rather than against it.

Shock endurance: 43

Quantitative score 39, adjusted up 4 points

We score endurance at 39 before adjustment. This is a system where ordinary volatility already causes stress: 41.78 million people in Crisis or worse between October and December 2025, and 52.8 million projected for the June to August 2026 lean season.[11] There is no fiscal buffer, with thirteen of fifteen members below USD 2,500 GDP per capita,[7] and no meaningful reserve. After eight years the ECOWAS Regional Food Security Reserve holds 74,162 tonnes for 222 million people, roughly 0.3 kilogrammes a head, and intervenes in consignments of 500 to about 8,300 tonnes;[24] RESOGEST commits 5 per cent of national stocks across seven pilot countries.[25] The external buffer that substituted for reserves is failing: WFP suspended assistance for two million people in April 2025 and needed USD 453 million for the following six months, with 13 million children expected to be malnourished in 2026.[28] Guinea-Bissau finances its rice imports from cashews, over 90 per cent of export earnings,[36] so a commodity price move becomes a food shock with no intervening step.

Crisis purchasing power, folded in at roughly a fifth of the pillar's weight, is more mixed than the humanitarian numbers alone suggest. The eight WAEMU members pool foreign reserves at 6.1 months of import cover in 2025, a genuine buffer resting on the CFA franc's convertibility guarantee from the French Treasury,[56] but the fiscal space to draw on it is narrow: Niger's tax take is 9.1 per cent of GDP against a 20 per cent WAEMU target,[47] and Senegal is servicing a hidden-debt legacy that has pushed public debt to 118.9 per cent of GDP.[49] Mali illustrates how quickly that regional buffer can be needed close to home: a Q4 2025 terrorist blockade of the Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire transport corridors cut fuel supplies and contracted transport activity by 9.3 per cent, widening its fiscal deficit to 2.9 per cent of GDP and lowering revenue to 18.5 per cent of GDP even as debt fell to 42.3 per cent.[48] Outside the union the picture splits further, from Cabo Verde's comfortable 7.8 months of reserves[55] to Sierra Leone's 1.7 months, where debt service already exceeded 100 per cent of revenue in 2025;[52] Liberia held 1.8 months,[53] Ghana 5.7 months,[46] Mauritania 5.6 months excluding extractives,[50] The Gambia 4.5 months[51] and Guinea 3.6 months, up from 1.4 at end-2024.[54] No domestic social protection system can scale to substitute for reserves; the region has instead relied on WFP, and that substitute is now being withdrawn.[28] Purchasing power therefore adds a genuine but narrow offset rather than a second pillar of resilience.

We add 4 points for documented shock performance, taking the pillar to 43. Through the 2022 Black Sea disruption and the fertiliser price spike that followed, cereal output held at or above five-year averages in fourteen of the fifteen members with a recent assessment, by margins of 5 to 27 per cent; Cabo Verde is the exception, its 2025 maize crop coming in about 40 per cent below an already low average.[12] Substitution is observable in prices: Niger's millet and sorghum fell 15 to 35 per cent between August and December 2025 and sat below imported rice.[12] WFP's Mali data quantify the counterfactual, with crisis hunger up 64 per cent where rations were cut and down 34 per cent where they held.[28] What offsets the rest is genuine dietary breadth and rainfed domestic production that a trade shock cannot switch off.

Trajectory

Three shifts matter here, and one is already moving. Mauritania's regulatory tightening has cut fishmeal output from 128,789 tonnes in 2020 to 59,158 in 2024 and operating plants from 44 authorised in 2021 to eight by September 2025.[17] Extending that restriction to Senegal and The Gambia, as FAO's working group recommends,[8] is the highest-leverage protein intervention available and costs nothing in imports. Second, enforcement against distant-water fleets is biting from outside: the EU issued Senegal an IUU yellow card in May 2024 and let the fisheries protocol expire that November.[22][23] Third, Senegal's 2025-2034 food sovereignty strategy and Sierra Leone's Feed Salone programme[12][14] are serious input-access plans, and Ghana's free fertiliser distribution for 2026 tests whether the yield gap is a price problem.[13]

Working against this is institutional fragmentation. The AES exit removes the three most conflict-affected members from the regional reserve architecture at the moment it would matter most,[29][30] and humanitarian funding is contracting.[28] We expect the score to hold near 43 unless the fishmeal restrictions generalise; a renewed Indian rice export restriction would move imports and endurance sharply down.

Country notes

Senegal. Fisheries employ around 600,000 people, 15 per cent of the labour force, yet 322,283 tonnes were exported in 2021 out of 462,002 landed, and the EEZ is worked by a fleet flagged 32 per cent to China and 17 per cent to Spain.[20] Rice imports run to 1.66 million tonnes, 58 per cent from India.[14]

Mauritania. The largest fish producer at 640,322 tonnes[2] and the state that did most to turn food into feed, with China taking 68 per cent of 2023 fishmeal exports.[17] Also the driest, at 82 cubic metres of freshwater per person,[7] with 590,000 acutely food insecure in 2025.[12]

Mali. Largest cereal producer at 10.4 million tonnes and 14.0 million cattle,[4][12] being dismantled by conflict: 1.52 million projected into Crisis or worse for 2025, including 2,600 in Catastrophe.[12]

Niger. Diverges upwards on capacity, with 92.5 grams of protein a day,[1] 20.4 million cattle[4] and 36.2 kilogrammes of milk per person,[41] and downwards on everything else: 0.77 kilogrammes of fertiliser per hectare, yields of 577, GDP per capita of USD 730 and 3.28 per cent population growth.[7]

Burkina Faso. Recorded protein supply of 92.6 grams a day[1] and cereal output of 6.1 million tonnes, 20 per cent above average,[12] alongside 2.1 million displaced and 2.7 million acutely food insecure as of April 2026.[33] It left ECOWAS on 29 January 2025 while remaining dependent on coastal transit.[29][30]

Ghana. Aquaculture leader at 121,810 tonnes, 76 per cent of the regional total,[3] and the most advanced fishery collapse, with small pelagic landings under 10 per cent of 1992 levels.[21] Wheat is wholly imported, 77 per cent from two suppliers.[13]

Côte d'Ivoire. Best fertiliser use at 43.8 kilogrammes per hectare and second-best yields at 2,398,[7] but the largest rice importer at a forecast 1.7 million tonnes[16] with capture fisheries of only 85,494 tonnes.[2]

Guinea. The largest untapped base and weakest realisation: 16,080 cubic metres of freshwater per person against 2.9 kilogrammes of fertiliser per hectare,[7] with rice imports of 1.15 million tonnes exceeding domestic output.[15]

Benin. The lowest food-insecurity caseload at 201,000 for the 2026 lean season,[12] attached to a re-export trade: USD 109 million of poultry meat imported in 2024,[32] with fertiliser dependency on Russia and Ukraine above 45 per cent.[26]

Togo. Among the thinnest domestic bases: 477,388 cattle,[4] 20,323 tonnes of capture fisheries[2] and 5.7 kilogrammes of milk per person,[41] with 625,000 acutely food insecure, 10 per cent of the analysed population.[12]

Liberia. The weakest member: 45.0 grams of protein a day,[1] 35.5 per cent undernourishment,[6] 43,270 cattle[4] and more than 80 per cent of rice imported,[35] against the region's largest freshwater endowment at 37,221 cubic metres per person.[7]

Sierra Leone. Highest fish supply at 24.4 kilogrammes per person[5] on aquaculture of 185 tonnes,[3] with 2.7 kilogrammes of fertiliser per hectare against 19,331 cubic metres of freshwater;[7] 1.2 million acutely food insecure.[12]

The Gambia. Fish supply of 20.2 kilogrammes per person[5] on 55,075 tonnes landed,[2] with fishmeal plants associated with availability falling from 15 to 7 kilogrammes between 2017 and 2020;[18] cereal output is 135,000 tonnes for 2.8 million people.[7][12]

Guinea-Bissau. The clearest single-point failure: cashews over 90 per cent of export earnings buy the imported rice staple.[36] Fish supply of 2.35 kilogrammes per person against 54,110 tonnes landed[2][5] shows the catch leaves the country.

Cabo Verde. Diverges furthest in both directions: the highest GDP per capita at USD 5,170 and lowest population growth at 0.49 per cent,[7] with meat supply of 43.8 kilogrammes per person,[40] against maize production of 1,100 tonnes[12] and canned tuna and mackerel at 70 per cent or more of goods exports.[37]

Country notes

Senegal
The region's pivotal case and its clearest warning. Fisheries employ around 600,000 people, about 15 per cent of the labour force, and contributed 3.2 per cent of GDP, yet in 2021 the country exported 322,283 tonnes of fish out of total landings of 462,002. Capture output was 500,077 tonnes in 2024 and aquaculture only 2,074. The EEZ is worked by a foreign fleet flagged 32 per cent to China, 17 per cent to Spain and 6 per cent to Belize, the EU issued an IUU yellow card in May 2024 and the EU fisheries protocol was allowed to expire in November 2024. Rice dependence is acute: 1.66 million tonnes of imports against 645,000 tonnes of milled production, with India supplying 58 per cent. The 2025-2034 food sovereignty strategy is the region's most serious policy answer; it has not yet moved the numbers.
Mauritania
The region's largest fish producer at 640,322 tonnes in 2024, and the state that has done most to convert food into feed. Authorised fishmeal plants peaked at 44 in 2021 and output at 128,789 tonnes in 2020, taking more than half the total pelagic catch in 2021 at roughly five kilogrammes of raw fish per kilogramme of meal, with China buying 68 per cent of the 2023 export volume. Regulatory tightening has cut output to 59,158 tonnes in 2024 and operating plants to eight by September 2025, which is genuine progress. Domestically it is the region's driest state, with 82 cubic metres of renewable internal freshwater per person per year, wheat flour is the most consumed cereal and cereal output was 571,000 tonnes in 2024 for 5.2 million people, with 590,000 acutely food insecure in the 2025 lean season.
Mali
The region's largest cereal producer at 10.4 million tonnes in 2024 and the largest cattle holder after Niger at 14.0 million head, with the highest milk supply in the Sahel outside Mauritania at 39.8 kilogrammes per person. On paper this is one of the more capable protein systems in the region. In practice conflict is dismantling it: MY2024/25 rice area fell 13 per cent with declines of 56 per cent in Gao and 35 per cent in Mopti, 1.52 million people were projected into Crisis or worse for the 2025 lean season including 2,600 in Catastrophe, and WFP's ration data show crisis hunger rising 64 per cent since 2023 where rations were cut. Exit from ECOWAS on 29 January 2025 leaves a landlocked state dependent on Dakar and Abidjan outside the customs union that governs those corridors.
Niger
Diverges from the regional score upwards on capacity and downwards on everything else. Per-capita protein supply of 92.5 grams a day is among the highest in the region, built on 20.4 million cattle and 36.2 kilogrammes of milk per person, and 2025 cereal output of 5.9 million tonnes was 13 per cent above the five-year average. But fish supply is 1.87 kilogrammes per person, fertiliser use is 0.77 kilogrammes per hectare and cereal yields 577 kilogrammes per hectare, the lowest in the region; GDP per capita is USD 730, population growth 3.28 per cent, food is 37.9 per cent of merchandise imports, and 1.86 million people were acutely food insecure in the last quarter of 2025. It has banned cereal exports outside the Alliance of Sahel States since October 2024, an explicit rejection of regional pooling.
Burkina Faso
The clearest case of statistics diverging from access. Recorded per-capita protein supply of 92.6 grams a day and 2024 cereal output of 6.1 million tonnes, 20 per cent above average, sit alongside roughly 2.1 million internally displaced people, 2.7 million acutely food insecure as of April 2026, blockaded towns with inaccessible farmland and pastoralists stripped of herds. About 60 per cent of its vegetable and 90 per cent of its live animal exports go to Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, so the ECOWAS exit and the 0.5 per cent AES levy cut across its own export earnings as well as its import corridors. The state did not participate in the October-November 2025 Cadre Harmonise cycle.
Ghana
The region's aquaculture leader and its most advanced fishery collapse. Aquaculture output of 121,810 tonnes in 2024 is 76 per cent of the regional total, but it depends on one major domestic feed maker, imported feed around 30 per cent dearer and a shortfall of some 50 million fingerlings a year, at a production cost of USD 1.51 per kilogramme against USD 0.78 to 1.29 in the leading producers. Fish supplies roughly 60 per cent of animal protein and small pelagic landings had fallen to under 10 per cent of their 1992 level by 2023, across a fleet of 12,000 canoes and over 100,000 fishers. Wheat is 100 per cent imported at 1.09 million tonnes in CY2025, 77 per cent of it from Turkey and Canada, and rice imports run near 950,000 tonnes. Cereal output of 6.2 million tonnes and a shift to free fertiliser distribution in 2026 are the offsetting strengths.
Cote d'Ivoire
Materially better placed than the regional average on resources and materially worse on rice. Cereal yields of 2,398 kilogrammes per hectare and fertiliser use of 43.8 kilogrammes per hectare are the region's second best and best respectively, renewable freshwater is 2,528 cubic metres per person, and 2024 cereal output was 3.3 million tonnes. Against that, it is the region's largest rice importer at a forecast 1.7 million tonnes in MY2026/27, fish supply of 23.7 kilogrammes per person rests on capture output of only 85,494 tonnes with aquaculture at 9,636, and per-capita protein supply of 65.0 grams a day is below the African average. Abidjan and San Pedro are the transit lifeline for landlocked Mali and Burkina Faso.
Guinea
The largest untapped resource base in the region and among the weakest realisation of it. Renewable internal freshwater of 16,080 cubic metres per person, 9.3 million cattle and 384,261 tonnes of capture fisheries coexist with fertiliser use of 2.9 kilogrammes per hectare, cereal yields of 1,351 and per-capita protein supply of 58.2 grams a day. Rice imports of 1.15 million tonnes in MY2025/26 slightly exceed domestic milled production of 1.09 million tonnes despite a national agricultural strategy effective from May 2024, and 920,000 people were acutely food insecure in the last quarter of 2024. Chinese distant-water operators have been accused of under-declaring vessel tonnage in Guinean waters.
Benin
A functioning domestic staple system attached to a re-export trade. Cereal output of 2.9 million tonnes in 2025 was 20 per cent above average and only 201,000 people were projected acutely food insecure for the 2026 lean season, the lowest caseload share in the region. But food is 33.3 per cent of merchandise imports, poultry meat imports ran to USD 109 million in 2024 from Spain, the United States, Brazil, Poland and Germany, much of it destined onward to Nigeria, and fertiliser dependency on Russia and Ukraine combined exceeds 45 per cent. Fish supply of 14.8 kilogrammes per person rests on capture output of 61,561 tonnes.
Togo
Small, coastal and thinly resourced. Per-capita protein supply of 62.4 grams a day, meat 11.7 kilogrammes and milk 5.7 kilogrammes are among the lowest in the region, cattle number only 477,388 and capture fisheries 20,323 tonnes, the second lowest marine output of the coastal states. Cereal output of 1.5 million tonnes in 2024 was 8 per cent above average, one of the smaller margins in the region (only Mali at 5 per cent and Cote d'Ivoire at 7 per cent were lower), and 625,000 people, 10 per cent of the analysed population, were projected acutely food insecure for the 2025 lean season. Lome is a transit port for the Sahel, which gives it leverage it has not used.
Liberia
The weakest member of the region on almost every measure. Per-capita protein supply of 45.0 grams a day is the lowest in the index region by a wide margin, undernourishment is 35.5 per cent, fish supply is 4.75 kilogrammes per person, cattle number 43,270 and milk supply is 3.3 kilogrammes per person. Rice is effectively the only cereal grown, at 325,000 tonnes of paddy in 2024, and more than 80 per cent of rice consumed is imported. The paradox is that it holds 37,221 cubic metres of renewable internal freshwater per person, the largest endowment in the region, and applies 11.7 kilogrammes of fertiliser per hectare for yields of 1,068 kilogrammes per hectare.
Sierra Leone
Fish-dependent and fish-poor. Fish supply of 24.4 kilogrammes per person is the highest in the region and FAO puts fish at almost 50 per cent of animal protein consumption, on capture output of 208,810 tonnes and aquaculture of just 185 tonnes. Per-capita protein supply is 57.6 grams a day, undernourishment 24.1 per cent and 1.2 million people were acutely food insecure in the 2025 lean season. Fertiliser use of 2.7 kilogrammes per hectare against 19,331 cubic metres of freshwater per person is the region's starkest gap between endowment and use; the 2024-2028 Feed Salone programme is the intended answer. The ECOWAS reserve's July 2025 intervention here was 500 tonnes.
The Gambia
A small state whose fishery is being processed for export. Fish supply of 20.2 kilogrammes per person and FAO's 2013 estimate that 62 per cent of dietary protein came from fish sit against capture output of 55,075 tonnes, aquaculture of 63 tonnes, and fishmeal plants that a 2026 Frontiers review associates with per-capita availability falling from 15 to 7 kilogrammes between 2017 and 2020. Cereal output of 135,000 tonnes in 2025 for 2.8 million people is the smallest domestic base of any mainland member, food is 22.0 per cent of merchandise imports, GDP per capita is USD 871 and 244,000 people were acutely food insecure in the 2025 lean season. It did not participate in the latest Cadre Harmonise cycle.
Guinea-Bissau
The region's clearest single-point failure. Cashews supply over 90 per cent of export earnings and those earnings buy the imported rice that is the staple, so a cashew price fall becomes a food shock without any intervening step. Per-capita protein supply is 52.1 grams a day, undernourishment 22.1 per cent, fish supply only 2.35 kilogrammes per person despite capture output of 54,110 tonnes, which indicates that the catch leaves the country. Cereal output of 351,000 tonnes in 2025 was 18 per cent above average and 146,000 people were acutely food insecure in the 2025 lean season. It did not participate in the latest Cadre Harmonise cycle.
Cabo Verde
Diverges furthest from the regional pattern in both directions. It has the region's highest GDP per capita at USD 5,170, the highest meat supply at 43.8 kilogrammes per person, milk at 100.2 kilogrammes and per-capita protein supply of 82.7 grams a day, and the lowest population growth at 0.49 per cent. It also has almost no domestic agriculture: maize production, effectively the only cereal grown, was 1,100 tonnes in 2025, nearly 40 per cent below an already low five-year average, amid a broader abandonment of farmland, and commercial sources put food import dependence at 80 to 90 per cent. Fish and fish products, chiefly canned tuna and mackerel, are 70 per cent or more of goods exports, so its protein economy is an export fishery attached to an import-fed population.

Sources

  1. Daily per capita protein supply (FAO Food Balance Sheets) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  2. Capture fisheries production (metric tons) · FAO via World Bank World Development Indicators, processed by Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  3. Aquaculture production (metric tons) · FAO via World Bank World Development Indicators, processed by Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  4. Cattle stocks (FAOSTAT) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  5. Fish and seafood supply per person (FAO Food Balance Sheets) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  6. Prevalence of undernourishment (SDG indicator 2.1.1) · FAO via Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  7. World Development Indicators (population, population growth, GDP per capita, fertiliser consumption, cereal yield, renewable internal freshwater, food imports share) · World Bank (2026 (data 2022-2024))
  8. Summary report, FAO Working Group on the Assessment of Small Pelagic Fish off Northwest Africa, 22nd meeting · FAO / Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF) (2023)
  9. FAO report: global fisheries and aquaculture production reaches a new record high, untapped potential remains in Africa (SOFIA 2024) · FAO Regional Office for Africa (2024 (data 2022))
  10. Africa's growing demand for aquatic foods creates a supply gap that sustainable aquaculture expansion could help close · FAO Regional Office for Africa (2026 (data 2023-2024))
  11. West Africa and the Sahel: nearly 52.8 million people could face acute food insecurity during the 2026 lean season · FAO Regional Office for Africa (2026)
  12. GIEWS Country Briefs: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo · FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (2024-2026)
  13. Grain and Feed Annual, Accra, Ghana (GH2026-0011) · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2026)
  14. Grain and Feed Annual, Dakar, Senegal (SG2025-0008) · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2025)
  15. 2025 Rice Supplementary Annual Update for West Africa (SG2025-0011), covering Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2025)
  16. Sub-Saharan Africa's rice imports set to hit record high in 2026/27 (USDA projections) · Milling Middle East & Africa (2026)
  17. Mauritania's fishmeal fever ends as government tightens regulation · Mongabay (2026)
  18. The fishmeal and fish oil industry: a perspective on sustainability, justice, and food security · Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability (2026)
  19. The new EU-Mauritania agreement: towards a sustainable management of small pelagics in West Africa? · Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements (2021)
  20. Estimating the impact of irregular and unsustainable fishing of distant-water fishing fleets in Senegal · ODI (Gutierrez and Lemma), for UNDP Ocean Innovation Challenge (2024)
  21. Ocean warming: a livelihood threat to Ghana's coastal fishers · CSIS (2024)
  22. Expiry of the protocol implementing the fisheries agreement between Senegal and the European Union · European External Action Service (2024)
  23. European Commission issues yellow card to Senegal over lack of action against IUU · SeafoodSource (2024)
  24. Situation of the Regional Food Security Reserve, information note no.1, January 2025 · ARAA / ECOWAS (2025)
  25. RESOGEST: a regional network of food security stocks · West Africa Gateway (OECD Sahel and West Africa Club) (2024)
  26. West Africa faces the nitrogen challenge: dynamics, dependencies and opportunities · Fondation FARM (2025)
  27. Measuring fertilizer consumption progress in Africa · IFDC (2024)
  28. Humanitarian aid cuts push millions deeper into hunger amid rising violence and population displacement in West and Central Africa · World Food Programme (2026)
  29. Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso officially exit ECOWAS · allAfrica (2025)
  30. A splinter in the Sahel: can the divorce with ECOWAS be averted? · International Crisis Group (2024)
  31. Maximizing the contribution of fish to human nutrition (ICN2 factsheet) · FAO (2013)
  32. Poultry meat trade profile, Benin · Observatory of Economic Complexity (2024)
  33. Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger: humanitarian overview (as of 29 April 2026) · UN OCHA (2026)
  34. Russia increases wheat exports to West Africa 23% in eight months · Interfax / Agroexport (2025)
  35. Liberia: agricultural sectors, country commercial guide · US Department of Commerce (trade.gov) (2024)
  36. Economic update 2024: challenges and opportunities for economic growth in Guinea-Bissau · World Bank (2024)
  37. Towards sustainable value chains for mackerel scad and tuna-like species in Cabo Verde: a ten-year upgrading strategy (2023-2033) · FAO KOFAP (2023)
  38. Why pond producers struggle to meet tilapia production goals in Ghana · The Fish Site (2024)
  39. Greenpeace: fishmeal industry stealing regional food and livelihoods in West Africa · Greenpeace Africa (2021)
  40. Meat supply per person (FAO Food Balance Sheets) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  41. Per capita milk consumption, excluding butter (FAO Food Balance Sheets) · Our World in Data (2026 (data 2023))
  42. Share of population that cannot afford a healthy diet (FAOSTAT Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet, CoAHD) · FAOSTAT, processed by Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  43. West Africa country nutrition profiles (child stunting, height for age under-5s) · Global Nutrition Report, sourcing UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates Expanded Database (2022 (database vintage; underlying survey years approx. 2018-2021))
  44. Share of children younger than 5 who suffer from stunting · Our World in Data / UNICEF-WHO-World Bank JME (2026 (data 2018-2021 by country))
  45. Ghana's inflation rises to 3.7% in May 2026 as food prices increase (and related monthly food inflation reporting, Dec 2024-May 2026) · Ghana Statistical Service, via Graphic Online (2026)
  46. Ghana: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  47. Niger: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  48. Mali: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  49. Senegal: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  50. Mauritania: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  51. The Gambia: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  52. Sierra Leone: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  53. Liberia: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  54. Guinea: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  55. Cabo Verde: Macro Poverty Outlook, April 2026 · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))
  56. West African CFA franc (Operations Account / French Treasury reserve guarantee) · Wikipedia (2026)
  57. Ghana's inflation rises to 23.8 percent in December, driven by food prices (food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation 27.8 per cent, December 2024) · Ghana Statistical Service, via Graphic Online (2025 (data December 2024))
  58. Ghana's inflation drops to 3.2% in March 2026 (food inflation 2.3 per cent, against 26.5 per cent in March 2025) · Ghana Statistical Service, via MyJoyOnline (2026 (data March 2026))
  59. Inputs: Land Use, Africa (land equipped for irrigation, arable land, cropland, area and share indicators, 1961-2025) · FAOSTAT data (2026 (data 2000-2024))
  60. Investment: Credit to Agriculture, Africa (Agriculture Orientation Index, Credit to Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, 1991-2024) · FAOSTAT data (2026 (data 1991-2024))
  61. Office du Niger; Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam · Wikipedia, corroborated by World Bank project documentation (Office du Niger: ensuring food security for Mali) and Citi Newsroom / Asaase Radio reporting on Pwalugu's 2026 rescoping (2026)

What we could not measure

Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau did not take part in the October-November 2025 Cadre Harmonise food-crisis assessment, so the region's headline caseload of 41.78 million people understates the true total. Cabo Verde has no current child stunting estimate; the regional figure (25.9 per cent) is a population-weighted average of the other fourteen members only. No FAO protein self-sufficiency ratio exists for the region as a unit, so capacity rests on per-capita supply and commodity-level figures instead.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced