Lawmakers of the ECOWAS Parliament have moved to address the persistent barriers facing small and medium businesses across West Africa, following a field visit and town hall engagement in Cotonou that exposed challenges undermining the region’s economic integration agenda.

The engagements, part of a delocalised meeting of key parliamentary committees, aimed to assess practical challenges facing businesses and traders and identify policy gaps hindering ECOWAS integration efforts, with lawmakers hearing recurring complaints about multiple checkpoints, inconsistent customs procedures and difficulty accessing finance that disproportionately affect small enterprises. The lawmakers also visited the Glo Djigbe Industrial Zone near Cotonou, a major hub developed through public private partnership that has attracted more than 40 companies across sectors including textiles and electric vehicle production, showcasing the potential of local value addition.

At a subsequent town hall meeting, traders shared firsthand accounts of cross border trade difficulties, with lawmakers promising to engage national authorities in member states to push for solutions, stressing that regional trade must become a practical tool for reducing poverty and unemployment, and that the success of ECOWAS integration will ultimately be measured by whether ordinary traders and entrepreneurs benefit from a genuinely open regional market.