Insights
Our take on development through data, every piece tied to a CRAD sector or area of expertise.
Measuring gender equality in energy: lessons from the WOCEWA project
The first regional assessment of gender equality in clean-energy SMEs across ECOWAS: method, results and lessons.
Financial inclusion: how mobile money is reshuffling the deck
In West Africa, mobile money has transformed financial inclusion in a single decade. With 485 million accounts and 357 billion dollars in transactions in 2024, the region has become the world's laboratory for digital payments. A data-driven look at the gains, the persistent gaps and the cost of any backsliding.
Pupil-teacher ratio: quality versus the pressure of numbers
In West Africa, the number of pupils per teacher weighs directly on learning quality. Behind slowly improving averages lies a capacity challenge: recruiting, training and retaining teachers at the pace of soaring demographics.
Malaria in West Africa: incidence is falling, but funding is slipping
The WHO African Region accounts for 95% of the world's malaria cases and 95% of its deaths. Incidence is finally declining in several West African countries, yet only 42% of the global funding target is covered. The risk of a reversal has never been more concrete.
Agricultural yields: the gap with the potential remains considerable
In West Africa, cereal yields rarely reach a third of their agronomic potential. Closing this gap is the most accessible, and least costly, lever for regional food security. Ghana's example shows that it is a matter of public policy choice, not fate.
Climate and Sahelian agriculture: measuring vulnerability to adapt better
In the Sahel, more than 80% of people depend on rainfed agriculture exposed to an unraveling climate. Measuring vulnerability precisely, territory by territory, is the precondition for adaptation that holds.
Data governance and open data: West Africa confronts its lag
Africa recorded the world's strongest improvement in open data (+23% in 2024/25), yet West Africa remains held back by scarce infrastructure, hard-to-use data and an underfunded statistical base. Beyond the rankings, we break down the mechanics of the lag, the cost of inaction and the levers of a catch-up that is already under way.
Learning Poverty: Reading to Understand, the Forgotten Emergency
In West Africa, children go to school without learning to read. Behind enrollment rates that have become almost universal, the majority of pupils cannot master a simple text by age 10. This is the silent crisis mortgaging the region's development.
Under-five mortality: a decline that must be consolidated
Since 2000, West Africa has driven down child mortality, but the pace is slowing. Between regional gaps of one to three and a global slowdown in gains, the question is no longer whether progress is possible, but how to consolidate it.
West African cotton: economic weight and dependence
Benin leads African cotton exports (USD 525.7M in 2024) without being the top producer, while Mali's collapse (from USD 324.7M to 63.0M in a single year) is a reminder of how fragile a sector that exports 98 percent of its raw fibre remains, exposed to world prices and insecurity.
Climate finance: what West Africa actually receives
West Africa needs USD 198.88 billion by 2030 to meet its climate commitments, yet only 7% has been mobilized. Behind the announcements lies a mechanics of loans and an adaptation gap that weigh on the region's public finances.
The Digital Divide: Who Is Really Connected in West Africa
In 2024, internet penetration ranges from 15.6% in Niger to 72.2% in Ghana. But the real regional divide is not only between countries: it separates network coverage from actual use, cities from rural areas, and men from women. A close reading of a divide that averages conceal.
Public Education Spending: The Budget Effort in Question
With around 3.6% of GDP devoted to education (average of the nine countries tracked, 2022), West Africa remains below the continental average (4.3%), below the global average (4.66%) and below the 4% floor set by the Education 2030 framework. Behind this average, gaps of one to seventeen between countries will determine the fate of a generation of learners, just as the school-age population is set to surge.
Health spending: when out-of-pocket costs push households into poverty
In West Africa, households sometimes finance more than 70% of health spending. This reliance on direct payment turns illness into a driver of impoverishment and undermines universal health coverage.
Agriculture in West Africa: the leading employer, an undervalued contribution to GDP
Agriculture employs between 30 and 73 percent of West Africa's workforce, yet its share of GDP lags far behind its weight in employment. This gap reflects a productivity deficit that public policy can correct, provided it is measured precisely.
CO2 emissions per capita: minimal responsibility, maximum vulnerability
West Africa accounts for less than 1% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, yet ranks among the regions most exposed to climate disruption. This imbalance between responsibility and exposure makes adaptation, and its financing, the policy priority of the decade.
Censuses and surveys: the raw material of decision-making
In West Africa, modern censuses provide a reliable knowledge base, but civil registration remains weak: in sub-Saharan Africa, only 51 % of births of children under five are registered, and the region holds 90 of the 150 million unregistered children worldwide (UNICEF, 2024). Without this raw material, no public policy can be planned or evaluated.
Youth literacy: the fragile foundation of West Africa's human capital
In West Africa, the youth literacy rate ranges from 50% in the Sahel to over 90% in the Gulf of Guinea. Behind these gaps lies the capacity of an entire generation to drive regional growth, and a cost of inaction measured in points of GDP.
Health workforce: the critical density that holds back coverage
In West Africa, no country comes close to the health workforce threshold required for universal health coverage. This shortage is the silent bottleneck that neutralizes every other investment in health.
Rice imports: the cost of food dependency
West Africa is producing more rice than ever, yet it keeps importing more. A look at a multi-billion-dollar paradox that weighs on the region's food security and public budgets.
Clean cooking: the blind spot of the energy transition
Nearly one billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa still cook without access to clean energy, at an estimated cost of around 815,000 premature deaths per year. In West Africa, the gap between countries ranges from 44% access to 1.3% (2023), and Côte d'Ivoire's trajectory proves this lag is no fate. The data reveals a blind spot the energy transition can no longer ignore.
Electricity Access in West Africa: The Urban-Rural Divide
In West Africa, electrification is advancing in cities but stalling in the countryside: while urban areas reach 67 to 98 percent access, rural areas remain stuck between 10 and 44 percent. This gap, not the national average, is the true measure of energy equity.
Primary Completion in West Africa: The Bar Stays High
The gap between West African countries is widening: Ghana (97.5%) and Togo (91.22%) clear the global target while Mali (48.43%) and Burkina Faso (51.99%) remain below half a cohort. Reading the trajectories, the mechanisms and the cost of inaction to close the gap with the 88% goal.
Statistical capacity: no reliable data, no reliable policy
Across West Africa, gaps in digital infrastructure, human capital and budgetary resources are weakening national statistical systems. Yet a public policy is only as sound as the data on which it rests, and Senegal proves that lagging behind is no fate.
Childhood immunization: who is catching up, who is falling behind
West Africa has broadly returned to pre-pandemic immunization levels, but behind the average lies a sharp divide between countries catching up (Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso) and those falling behind, with Benin dropping to 44 % measles coverage, one of the lowest rates in the region.
Girls in School: Where Gender Gaps Still Widen
In West Africa, the gender gap is no longer just about getting through the primary-school gate; it now plays out in completion and in the quality of learning. Enrolling girls is not enough: they must complete and learn.
Renewables in the ECOWAS electricity mix: a transition at multiple speeds
ECOWAS aims for 48% renewables in its electricity by 2030, but the regional mix is still estimated at around 26% and conceals staggering gaps, from 62.3% in Mali to 0.26% in Benin. Behind the average lies a fragmented transition that only fine-grained, country-by-country measurement can steer.
Birth registration: to exist is to count
In West Africa, tens of millions of children remain invisible to civil registration. Yet the region has delivered the strongest progress in the world over fifteen years. A look at a field where legal identity unlocks access to every right, and where fine-grained measurement decides who is actually reached.
Maternal Mortality: Real Progress, an Avoidable Gap
West Africa has driven down maternal mortality, but the current pace falls far short. The gap of more than fourfold between neighbouring countries proves it: this lag is not inevitable, it is the product of choices about investment and the organisation of care.
Maize, rice, sorghum: the state of West African cereal production
West Africa is estimated to have produced around 73.7 million tonnes of cereals in 2024, a slight decline according to the FAO, even as its food sovereignty improves. Behind the volumes, a yield gap of 60 to 80% against potential and a record import bill define the challenge of the decade. A data-driven analysis, from Benin to Nigeria.
Undernourishment in West Africa: the curve that worries
After undernourishment prevalence held at 15% in 2022 in West Africa, the trajectory is tightening: more than 40 million people food insecure in West and Central Africa at the end of 2024, and a projection of 52.7 million at the mid-2025 lean season (including 3.4 million in Phase 4). A data-driven reading of a curve that is changing slope, and of what it costs.
Sector databases: the missing link in public policy
Collecting is not enough. Between the one-off survey and the national dashboard, the essential piece is often missing: a structured, interoperable and durable sector database able to hold health, agriculture, education and energy data over time. It is this operational link, not the macro statistical framework alone, that today determines the quality of public-policy steering in West Africa.
Measuring gender equality in energy: lessons from the WOCEWA project
With WOCEWA, CRAD designed for CEREEC/ECREEE the first gender equality index for sustainable energy SMEs across the twelve ECOWAS countries. A regional score of 48.1 out of 100, and only 16% of SMEs led by women, reveal what no anecdote can show, and steer an 18.96 million USD action plan. The story of a measurement that changes how donors decide.
A monitoring and evaluation system that outlives the project
Too many monitoring and evaluation systems are built for the final report rather than for steering, and die with the funding that created them. This waste is not inevitable: it stems from design choices that six principles can correct. The point is not to measure more, but to build a useful, parsimonious and locally owned instrument that keeps serving decisions long after the donor has gone.
Connected field: how digital data transforms agricultural value chains
For decades, assessing an agricultural value chain meant waiting months between fieldwork and the first results. The shift from paper to mobile digital data collection (ODK, KoboToolbox, CommCare, Survey Solutions) cuts that delay to a few hours and makes data more reliable at source. In economies where agriculture employs 35 to 73 percent of workers, this is not a technical detail: it is the precondition for steering value chains in line with what is at stake.
Building health surveillance that lasts
Too many disease surveillance systems collapse the moment the project that funded them ends. In West Africa, one national health system in three still hinges on external aid, and health-worker density sits far below the WHO threshold. The durability of a surveillance system cannot be decreed: it must be designed, from day one, for the moment the donor walks away.
Assessing learning without betraying the field
In West Africa, enrolling children is no longer enough: nearly nine in ten cannot read a simple text at age ten. The real task is now to measure what pupils actually learn, with a methodological rigour and a sensitivity to gender that do not betray the field. A poorly designed assessment manufactures false certainties, and public money aims at the wrong target.
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