West African governments are the least committed in reducing inequality in Africa

• The three most committed West African countries to reducing inequalities are Cape Verde, Mauritania and Senegal. The three least committed are Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Niger.
• ECOWAS countries lose an estimated $9.6 billion to corporate tax incentives offered to multinational companies. This would be enough to build about 100 modern and well-equipped hospitals each year in the region or seven brand new hospitals per country in one year.
• Burkina Faso is the only West African country among the top ten most committed to social spending in Africa. The West Africa region has the least population with access to water and decent education in Africa. Nigeria has the worst score on social spending, not only in Africa but in the world.
• West Africa’s universal health coverage is the lowest of all sub-regions of Africa.
• The average universal health coverage in the ECOWAS region is 38%. It is 47.2% in Eastern Africa and 50.2% in Southern Africa.
• If all 15-year-olds achieved a basic level of education, the West Africa region could increase its economic growth by nearly 4%.
• Inequalities between rural and urban populations are particularly noticeable in West Africa. For example, in Ghana, 62.3% of urban households have access to treated water but just 17.1% of rural households, and 88.6 per cent of urban population are connected to the national grid, compared with 48.3 per cent of the rural population.
• The amount of wealth held in Africa rose by 13 percent between 2007 and 2017. The West African countries that recorded the largest growth in wealth were La Côte d’Ivoire (by 43 per cent), Ghana (39 per cent) and Nigeria (19 per cent). These increases in national wealth presented an enormous opportunity to improve the lives of the many, but unfortunately much of it benefited only a select few and has been hidden away offshore and untaxed.
• Five of Nigeria’s richest men have a combined wealth of US$29.9 billion – more than the country’s entire national budget for 2017. However, about 60 per cent of its citizens live on less than US$1.25 a day, the threshold for absolute poverty.
• West Africa is the most male-dominated region in Africa in terms of participation in the labour market. The gap is widest in Mauritania where only 31% of women of working age compared to 67.7% of men are in paid work. In Benin, it is 45.5% female, and 69.9% male. Ghana’s labour market is the most inclusive in the sub-region with 74.8% women, 79.2% men.
• There are widespread labour rights violations across West Africa. The informal sector is the main source of employment. Informal workers, mostly women, live in precarious conditions, are poorly paid, sometimes far below the poverty line. For example, in Senegal, only 3.8 percent of jobs are in the formal sector.
• 35% of West Africa’s economy is agriculture, employing over 50 percent of the work force, especially women. Despite this, most West African governments fail to honour the Malabo commitments to invest 10 percent of their national budget in agriculture.

The report, methodology document explaining how Oxfam calculated the figures, and the data set is available on request.

Oxfam’s calculations are based on the most up to date, comprehensive data sources available