| Globalization is nowadays an ever more important part off a country’s development. Foreign direct investments are in essential part of that development. Over the past two decades, emerging countries such as Brazil, China, India, Russia or South Africa have grown into powerful economies, carried in part by strong investments from developed countries. African countries also attract investments from other parts of the world; mainly the European Union, the United States, but also emerging economies.Following the 2008 crisis, an increase in investments in the agricultural field has been noticed worldwide. However, those foreign direct investments are not equally distributed in West Africa, and some countries are lagging behind. The livestock trade sector in West Africa still uses archaic methods, and the intra-regional trade is under-developed.This thesis mainly focuses on the methods of investment employed in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and analyzes the impact of foreign direct investments on the trade of livestock. A linear regression was used for the analysis, and shows that, even though FDIs have an impact on the trade of livestock to and from ECOWAS, their influence is too marginal to be noticed, mainly due to the low amounts of investments in the sector. The thesis concludes that, unless more amounts of money are invested into the livestock trade sector, its development will not be improved by FDIs. It also concludes that measures need to be taken by West African countries to control problems created by investments, such as land grabbing. |
