Vision
The association aims to bring together private socio-professional organizations from agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery value chains whose members carry out marketing activities of food or agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery products in or between the countries of the Economic Community. West African States (ECOWAS) and the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and officially recognized as such in their State of origin.
AOCTAH has headquarters in all of the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone , Chad and Togo. A bank account can be opened in all these countries. This head office in the countries can be in the premises of any agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery umbrella organization. The main head office is in Togo and it can be transferred to any other country in the Sahel and West Africa and at any time by decision of the General Assembly. The General Assembly gave a mandate to the Permanent Secretary to open bank accounts in the various countries, including at the head office. AOCTAH enjoys the status of a diplomatic mission with the attendant advantages. AOCTAH is an international, apolitical, non-denominational, non-ethnic association recognized by the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger , Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Chad and Togo. It has legal capacity and financial autonomy. AOCTAH is governed by these statutes and by-laws which supplement it. It submits to the laws and regulations applicable to non-profit associations, diplomatic missions of the country where it has its headquarters.
The purpose of AOCTAH is to promote solidarity in matters of food and nutritional security as well as trade in the CILSS and ECOWAS areas. As such, it undertakes to:
• Set up a West Africa Agricultural Commodities Exchange (WAACE) / West Africa Agricultural Commodities Exchange (BOPAO);
• work to develop a regional capacity for the storage, marketing and transport of food or agro-sylvo-pastoral, fishery and agrifood products at national and regional level;
• contribute to the creation of jobs, wealth as well as the food and nutritional sovereignty of countries and the region;
• strengthen or create storage and transport systems in collaboration with the organizational members of the members and other partners;
• mobilize financial resources from States, Technical and Financial Partners, Regional Integration Economic Communities, patrons, etc .; ;
• strengthen the financial, technical and organizational capacities of members;
• collect data on intra-regional flows of food or agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery products, feed the foreign trade databases of Member States, UEMOA and ECOWAS;
• carry out data collection activities on trade barriers and advocate for the removal of barriers to cross-border trade;
• support and support umbrella organizations to work together for commercial facilitation, streamline truck delivery and the signing of Multipartite MoUs for the mobilization of internal financial resources;
• carry out studies and propose reforms to harmonize procedures for cross-border trade in food, agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery products with a view to eliminating obstacles to the development of formal trade.
Motto
The motto of the AOTAH is "Fluid and Integrated Food or Agro-sylvo-pastoral and Fisheries Markets in the Sahel and West Africa".