West Africa
USAID's Strategy for West Africa
Conflict continues to plague this sub-region, undermining investments in its development and further impoverishing the majority of its people. The failure to resolve the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire has disrupted the pattern of intra-regional trade and displaced its people, both within Côte d'Ivoire and neighboring countries.
Development indicators for the region remain abysmal, with more than half of West African countries falling within the bottom 25 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index for 2003. Cape Verde aside, GDP per capita for 2001 ranged from a low of $470 for Sierra Leone to a high of $2,250 for Ghana. The proportion of the population living on a dollar or less a day when measured between 1990 and 2001 ranged from 12 percent in Côte d'Ivoire to 73 percent in Mali. Forty percent of countries experienced negative GDP growth during the same period. It is not surprising that only four countries - Cape Verde, Ghana, The Gambia, and Guinea - are on track with respect to half or more of their Millennium Development Goals. Although agriculture is viewed as the engine that will drive West Africa's economic growth and development, it too is faced with several biophysical constraints, including low soil fertility and low rainfall. In all, only 4 percent of West Africa's land area has both high soil fertility and sufficient rainfall for an adequate number of growing days.
Ironically, these dismal development indicators for West Africa make the region all the more strategically important to the United States. Desperate and widespread poverty combines with porous borders and lax and corrupt bureaucracies to create a lucrative source of funds from illegal trade in the region's high-value natural resource wealth – diamonds, timber, and uranium – that directly or indirectly support terrorist groups.
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