In an era where global priorities are shifting and international partnerships are being redefined, the need for a unified and intentional approach to industrialisation has never been more urgent.
This is precisely the focus of the upcoming West Africa Industrialisation, Manufacturing & Trade (West Africa IMT) Summit, scheduled for October 21–23, 2025, in Lagos, a platform designed to transform regional ambition into actionable strategies.
For West Africa, industrialisation will not be won country by country; it will be won in specialised, cross-border value chains where each economy does what it does best and scale is achieved collectively. Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal are positioned to anchor such a corridor if policy, infrastructure, and standards align.
Ghana, for example, has spent the last several years localising production through One District, One Factory (1D1F), a public-private push to seed factories across districts and shift the economy from raw exports to processing and manufacturing.
Senegal, meanwhile, has advanced an industrial strategy under the Plan Sénégal Émergent, with the Diamniadio Industrial Park as a flagship and ongoing reforms to attract investment and increase manufacturing activities. New energy developments and fiscal consolidation are meant to underpin competitiveness and reliability for industry.
Nigeria brings unmatched scale: a population of over 220 million, abundant raw materials, and a fast-growing policy tilt toward value addition. In Q1 2025, Nigeria’s manufacturing sector contributed 9.62% to GDP, up from 7.62% in Q4 2024, a sign of renewed momentum but far from the double-digit share that industrial leaders are targeting.
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Senator John Owan Enoh, argued that West Africa’s progress “is dependent on our capital cities, not the West”, a pointed reminder that the region must invest in itself. The logic is sound: Nigeria brings scale and resources, but countries like Ghana and Senegal are proving nimble with industrial reforms and manufacturing initiatives.
The glue is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). By lowering tariffs and, crucially, tackling non-tariff barriers that add an estimated 14% cost in manufacturing trade within Africa, the agreement creates incentives to design regional value chains. For West Africa, that means collaboration over competition, and practical regional strategies to ensure that industrialisation is not just a national ambition but a shared movement.
The West Africa IMT Summit provides the ideal platform for these conversations—bringing together governments, investors, and industry leaders to move beyond rhetoric and deliver a coherent regional strategy. By creating alignment across borders, the Summit aims to ensure that industrialisation is not pursued in silos but through shared infrastructure, skills, and markets.
In a world moving rapidly toward trade-driven partnerships and locally rooted production, West Africa can no longer afford to wait. The region’s youthful population, natural endowments, and policy momentum must be matched by investment, infrastructure, and sustained execution.
