Ports, corridors, warehouses: West Africa builds its logistics future

A region spanning fifteen countries[1] , more than 400 million people, and three driving sectors: agribusiness, mining, and energy. On paper, West Africa has everything it takes to attract investment. But for decades, its economic model followed a simple pattern: extraction, transport to ports, and export to Asia. That era appears to be over. “Government policies are now much more focused on processing, meaning industrialization,” explains Rhavy Nursimulu, head of Logi-Consult, a logistics and trade architecture consultancy specializing in economic corridors, value chains, and trade facilitation within Africa and between Asia and Africa. A Mauritian who founded LOGI-CONSULT in 2018 and is an associate researcher at CREMPOL (Centre de Recherche Maritime, POrtuaire et Logistique), Rhavy Nursimulu specializes in the architecture of African economic corridors. Since 2024, his research and consulting work has focused primarily on the architecture of African economic corridors, including the development of four Strategic Blueprints devoted to the Northern Corridor (Mombasa), the North South Corridor (Durban OceanGate), the Indian Ocean Blue Corridor (Port Louis), and the Abidjan-Lagos corridor. Today, he is working on the dynamics of the latter and on new economic corridor models in West Africa.

 [1]Clarification: when referring to West Africa as a geographic and economic region, this is the correct figure. However, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger formally withdrew from ECOWAS in January 2025, leaving it with just twelve members.

This work led to the development of the Africa Intelligent Corridors 2030 initiative, launched in 2025, and gives him an inside view of the changes unfolding in a region he describes as “the next economic boom.” His assessment is straightforward: West African logistics “has made more progress on its maritime gateways than on the smooth end-to-end flow of its supply chains.” In practical terms, this means modernized ports, some of them state of the art, but still-fragile corridors, slow border crossings, and aging rail networks. As a direct consequence, several industry studies and regional reports estimate that, for certain sectors and corridors in West Africa, logistics costs (domestic transportation, storage, handling, and border procedures) can reach 30 to 40% of the value of goods, compared with less than 10% in the most integrated economies. These figures nevertheless vary significantly by country, product, and methodology.

“West Africa no longer has an infrastructure problem; today, it faces the challenge of making its systems work coherently,” Rhavy Nursimulu summarizes. Building additional terminals is no longer what will make the difference. What matters is the ability to connect ports to the interior: to production centers, logistics hubs, and end markets.

A handful of major hubs shape most freight flows. Abidjan has established itself as a leading regional hub, with total cargo throughput reaching approximately 46.6 million metric tons in 2025, and remains an essential gateway for Burkina Faso and Mali. Tema, Ghana’s major industrial port, is consolidating its position as Meridian Port Services expands its operations. Lomé, where MSC has established its base, has carved out a strong position in transshipment and connections with the Sahel. In Dakar, a new 1,200-hectare port is being developed, with DP World as the main partner. Finally, the Africa Logistics Zone project, a joint venture between Port Autonome de Cotonou and Port d’Anvers, aims to make the Beninese port the region’s benchmark port logistics hub. But examining this landscape one port at a time would miss the central issue. “The real challenge is no longer the individual performance of ports, but their ability to operate as a coordinated system,” Rhavy Nursimulu emphasizes. Overland corridors—Abidjan-Ouagadougou, Abidjan-Bamako, Lomé-Ouagadougou-Niamey, Cotonou-Niamey, and Dakar-Bamako—offer the landlocked countries of the Sahel competing and complementary alternatives, depending on conditions at any given time. Alongside these routes, the Abidjan-Lagos corridor does not connect a port to a hinterland but forms the coastal economic backbone of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States). “A corridor that only transports goods remains a corridor of dependency,” the expert observes. “A corridor that produces, processes, and redistributes becomes an economic system.” Obstacles nevertheless remain: the condition of the rail network, virtually nonexistent inland waterway transport, and still-cumbersome customs procedures.

Against this backdrop of transition, logistics real estate in the strict sense—warehouses meeting international standards, integrated parks, and formal leases—remains an emerging market. Demand is real and growing in Abidjan, Lagos, Accra, and Tema, but supply remains limited and lacks standardization. The figures confirm this pressure: according to Knight Frank, modern warehouses in Africa recorded an occupancy rate of 83% in the first half of 2025, compared with 75% a year earlier. “This growth reflects the increasing maturity of African industrial real estate as an asset class in its own right, while highlighting the persistent imbalance between supply and demand for Class A space,” notes Boniface Abudho, an analyst at Knight Frank Africa, in a corporate publication.

Agility Logistics Parks has stepped into this gap. A subsidiary of Agility Global Plc (a group listed on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange and operating in more than 80 countries), Agility Logistics Parks is now the leading developer of logistics parks meeting international standards in West Africa. Its CEO for Africa, Geoffrey White, summarizes its philosophy: “There is clear and growing demand for quality warehouses, with local businesses and multinationals seeing the benefits of leasing ready-to-use space in a secure environment that meets international standards.” The group opened its first park in Abidjan in 2020. Its land bank now exceeds 470,000 m² in Côte d’Ivoire, with parks in Ghana (Accra/Tema), Mozambique (Maputo), and Egypt (Cairo), and a site under construction in Lagos. Across the continent, its portfolio has a total land bank of 1.5 million m², with more than 300,000 m² already developed or under development. Its warehouses, built to Class A specifications and EDGE-certified, mark a departure from the informal model that still dominates. The Abidjan park was also the first in West Africa to obtain this certification. The tenant mix reflects demand that is becoming more structured: local businesses and multinationals operate side by side in e-commerce, distribution, contract logistics, and light manufacturing. “Tenants (international and local companies in retail, consumer goods, technology, automotive, energy, and e-commerce—editor’s note) have seen improvements in operational efficiency thanks to the open layout and scale of the warehouses. They value the flexibility to adjust their space as their business evolves,” Geoffrey White explains. This is the case for CDCI, Côte d’Ivoire’s leading retailer, which manages its entire national distribution network from the Abidjan park—121 stores across 40 cities throughout the country. Since moving in, the retailer has reduced shrinkage, improved service levels, and lowered its overall logistics costs. This is a significant advantage on a continent where entering each new market still requires considerable effort.

In the background, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is emerging as a potential accelerator for all these developments. With a target of 1.4 billion consumers, it would represent the world’s largest market. “Cross-border trade between neighboring countries is currently very limited, constrained by inefficient customs, inadequate infrastructure, and unreliable logistics,” Geoffrey White explains. “The AfCFTA has the potential to increase intra-African trade from its current 12% to levels above 50%, comparable to other global economic blocs.” This prospect would transform the very nature of logistics demand: more regular flows, regionalized supply chains, and a tenfold increase in warehousing needs. For Rhavy Nursimulu, private logistics real estate players have a central role to play, provided they adopt the right approach. He points to the model led by ARISE IIP (a pan-African developer and operator of integrated industrial zones) in Benin: a 1,600-hectare special economic zone with 65% private ownership and a 35% state stake, where the operator is more than a landlord—it is a strategic partner. “We need to embrace this public-private partnership approach, where the private sector becomes a strategic ally and the government provides support,” he recommends. The next step, he says, will be to combine the two businesses—logistics real estate and third-party logistics (3PL) services—in a single integrated offering.