REVIEW OF THE CHALLENGES FACING THE SEED SECTOR IN WEST AFRICA

As part the strategies to improve the agricultural productivity through the promotion of seed industry to be competitive, the present study aimed to analyze the challenges facing the seed sector in West Africa and identify relevant indicators useful for further research activities in this sector. Therefore, the methodology employed was based on a literature review and a SWOT analysis of the seed system through semi-structured interviews with the main seed services in the four countries selected for the research, namely Sierra-Leone, Senegal, Benin and Togo. The analysis identified a set of tree categories of challenges: (i) institutional, regulatory, and policy challenges; (ii) organizational and governance challenges within the sector; and finally, (iii) technical challenges. The first category of challenges included, the failure to adequately account for the informal seed system in policies, the ineffective enforcement of certain regulatory procedures, and the failure in the operationalization of the support fund for the seed sector. The second category of challenges was related to the low level of the private sector involved in the development of the seed sector, the weak organization of the seed marketing chain, and inadequate planning of seed chain activities.