The 4th edition of the President’s Roundtable of the West African Development Bank (BIDC/EBID) was held on November 24, 2025 in Accra with a clearly stated ambition: to put West Africa back at the center of global value chains, no longer just as a supplier of raw materials, but as a region capable of turning its agricultural wealth into economic power. The panel, broadcast on various television channels, began with an address by BIDC President George Agyekum Donkor, reaffirming the role of the institution and its commitment to supporting the West African agro-industrial sector. The region is a leader in the production of cocoa, mangoes, and cashew nuts, among others. The discussions highlighted the paradox of a region that dominates cocoa, mangoes, or cashews, while capturing only a marginal portion of global added value.
Participating in the meeting, Kyle Kelhofer, IFC Senior Country Manager for Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo, emphasized that the competitiveness of value chains relies first and foremost on a simple truth: “more and better jobs.” In other words, without massive investment in SMEs, logistics, and processing, industrial ambitions will remain rhetorical. The IFC deploys a range of tools from equity to guarantees, including long-term credit lines to facilitate access to patient capital.
Proparco, represented by Ange-Pascal Kouassi (director for Ghana and Liberia), mentioned injecting nearly 150 million euros into African food systems each year, focusing on bank partnerships to de-risk credit and direct financing for SMEs, especially those struggling to provide the collateral required by banks. “The major risk for SMEs is access to guarantees. We finance banks so that they can in turn finance companies,” he summarized.
At the heart of the regional mechanism, Dr. Andrew Amankwah, Director of Treasury and Resource Mobilization at BIDC, provided a structuring analysis of the panel. According to the expert, West Africa must take into account the “missing middle,” SMEs, through the establishment of efficient value chains between the farm and the port – where bottlenecks are concentrated: transportation, storage, certification, primary processing, and traceability. BIDC responds with sophisticated financial engineering: blended finance combining climate finance, concessional resources, and impact funds, long-term loans, equity investments to catalyze private investment, and guarantee mechanisms designed to absorb risks that the market refuses to assume alone.
The figures illustrate the stakes: 50 billion USD for the global mango market, nearly 30 billion USD for cocoa, a similar dynamic for cashew nuts. Yet, risks persist. The first is the quality of raw materials, conditioned by certifications and increased compliance with European standards. The much-feared EUDR – European regulations on deforestation – directly threatens the cocoa sector, especially for small producers with imperfect traceability. Added to this is the extreme price volatility: Ghana produces 600,000 tons of cocoa but remains exposed to climatic and phytosanitary shocks that destabilize public revenues and farmer incomes. Finally, the prohibitive cost of energy – up to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour in Ghana – undermines local processing efforts.
George Dunkor had said in his introductory message, “West Africa leads the global market in cocoa, mango, and cashew, but transforms almost nothing. Jobs are created elsewhere.” The famous missing middle is not just a financial deficit; it is logistical, regulatory, and institutional.
In this chorus of voices, James Boateng, former CEO of Cadbury Ghana, introduced a often overlooked dimension: the value of a sector is truly built when it extends into the brand. “The product is worth nothing until the brand exists,” he recalled, calling for increased industrial discipline, local skills, and leasing solutions to equip SMEs at lower cost.
Discussions also highlighted the crucial role of structuring instruments: Africa Food Security Fund, African Agriculture Fund, warehousing solutions, integrating SMEs into formal chains through dedicated credit lines, public technical assistance, private incubators, accelerators, and strategic coaching.
In the end, this 4th edition of the President’s Roundtable confirmed that West Africa lacks neither potential nor available capital, but strategic coherence to capture value. The equation is known: industrialize, regulate, certify, transform, and de-risk. As Donkor emphasized, regional decision-makers must now “align their ambitions” so that the region finally stops being the world’s pantry and becomes one of its workshops.
