The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) increasingly shape agricultural policy discourses across the Global South, yet their practical relevance and limitations in West Africa remain underexplored. This study interrogates the role of the SDGs in shaping agricultural policy priorities in West Africa and critically examines their limitations. Drawing on a systematic review of twenty –four peer-reviewed articles, policy reports, and institutional documents, the paper assesses how global development frameworks influence agricultural transformation agendas in West Africa. Transparent search, screening and synthesis procedures were employed to evaluate policy alignment, evidence of prioritization and implications for marginalized groups. The findings reveal a persistent tension between global goals and local realities: while the SDGs provide a unifying policy agenda, they risk reproducing systemic inequalities when adopted without contextual adaptation. The result also showed that SDGs operate as soft governance instruments whose effects are mediated by domestic political economies, producing selective localization and stratified inclusion in West African agricultural transformation. The study argues that without complementary, locally grounded strategies tailored to the political economy, cultural context and the needs of marginalized populations, global frameworks may reinforce, rather than redress, structural inequalities.
Addison et al. (2026) studied this question.