Nine ECOWAS member states signed the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents in Accra on 26 October 2026, joining 26 countries backing a single cross-border cargo document issuable in paper or electronic form.
Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo were the ECOWAS states among the signatories, according to a report from the Economic Community of West African States.
The convention, known as the Accra Convention, provides for one negotiable cargo document covering goods moved across transport modes and national borders.
The ECOWAS Commission said that, effectively implemented, it could simplify documentation, ease information exchange, speed the movement of goods along corridors and support more efficient multimodal transport.
The commission also linked the convention to work already under way in the region, saying it could complement efforts to consolidate the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, strengthen customs cooperation and improve the efficiency of transit operations.
It could further reinforce implementation of the ECOWAS Transit Procedure, set out in Supplementary Act A/SA.2/12/21, and the Interconnected System for the Management of Goods in Transit, known as SIGMAT, which supports the electronic exchange of transit information among customs administrations.
Ahead of the ceremony, on 7 October 2026, the ECOWAS Commission, Ghana’s Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry and the UNCITRAL Secretariat held a virtual sensitisation session for member states on the convention’s key provisions and its relevance to regional trade facilitation.
The commission was represented at the signing by Kolawole Sofola, Director of Trade, on behalf of Dephue Yenpea Zuo, Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture.
Sofola also took part in the UNCITRAL60 Symposium, serving as a panelist in Session II, titled “Trade Facilitation and Regional Connectivity, Corridors, the AfCFTA and Negotiable Cargo Documents.”
That session brought together representatives of the World Customs Organization, the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Kenya Maritime Authority.
Discussions at the symposium focused on non-tariff barriers, including excessive documentation, repeated border checks, administrative delays and inefficiencies along regional transport corridors.
Participants said these raise trade costs and undermine competitiveness, particularly for businesses operating across multiple borders and transport modes.
Participants also stressed the need to align the convention with existing trade facilitation frameworks, including the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Facilitation and the AfCFTA, particularly its work on customs cooperation, transit and digital trade.
Coordinated implementation involving national institutions, National Trade Facilitation Committees, Regional Economic Communities and continental partners was described as essential to delivering tangible benefits for traders and transport operators.
For ECOWAS, advancing the convention’s objectives would contribute to reducing the time and cost of cross-border trade, strengthening regional value chains, improving access to markets and promoting the free movement of goods across the Community.
Comments