Ouidah, Benin — It is barely noon, and a group of women sit near the beach on the outskirts of Djégbadji village, in West Africa’s Benin, sifting through mounds of salt harvested from the Gulf of Guinea’s ocean.
Large concrete vats covered with black tarpaulin show traces of white salt sediment as the seawater slowly evaporates under Benin’s midday sun – except that instead of using fire, the group uses solar energy.
The women have been working as part of a grassroots project called ProSEL Benin, a collaborative effort of the governments of Benin along with India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that focuses on strengthening local salt-producing communities to access sustainable energy sources and create medium-sized enterprises for the production and marketing of local iodised salt.
Salt production is one of the main income-generating activities for the populations living in and around southern Benin.
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Generations-Old Traditions
“In Benin’s coastal areas, women skim the salt from the coastal marshes… they put up their little huts and boil salt water in massive vats over an open fire inside the hut. They then sell the ‘cooked’ salt at the markets and on the roadsides. It’s an unhealthy practice for various reasons,” says Robina Marks, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to Benin and Togo from 2021 to 2024 and was closely involved in the implementation of the IBSA-backed project.
The traditional method of collecting and cooking the salt has been practised in Benin since at least the 15th century, primarily by women, and involves collecting saline soil, evaporating the water and filtering brine by burning chopped mangrove wood to produce salt.
The practice harms women’s health due to how they collect the salt and the conditions in which it is prepared.
“It takes a very long time and is very labour-intensive,” Marks says.
The ProSEL Benin project attempts to change this traditional practice and make the process of collecting salt healthier and cleaner.
Salt-making is an important source of income for communities here, relying heavily on the cutting down of mangroves.
ProSEL Benin’s research estimates that approximately 20,000 cubic metres of mangrove wood are cut down annually in coastal Benin for use as firewood in Indigenous salt-making.
The UNDP and the Benin government discussed the new method about five years ago.
“But the idea came from the people on the ground, who had the needs. The Benin government came up with the project and wanted to work with UNDP,” says Aoualé Mohamed Abchir, who served as the UNDP Resident Representative in Benin from 2020 to 2024 and was instrumental in its development.
ProSEL Benin, Abchir says, is an attempt to advance three out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: gender equality; decent work and economic growth; and responsible consumption and production. This project aims to help rural women in Benin make and sell clean salt and become self-reliant.
In 2021, the Board of Directors of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Fund awarded USD 1 million to the UNDP to implement the salt project.
IBSA is an example of collaborative efforts between the three developing countries, as well as a South-South cooperation initiative within the United Nations that focuses on development cooperation among developing countries in the Global South.
When 60-year-old Cécile Koffi was first introduced to the salt project, it took some time to convince her to switch from the traditional method of making salt.
“There are a lot of things the salt does. Salt is intrinsic to the community’s women,” Koffi says, examining the day’s salt collection.
Salt is culturally important to Benin, and its uses go beyond culinary applications.
“It is not only used as food, but it also has a cultural aspect to it. It is regarded as sacred and is used in many of the vodoun practices,” says Marks.
“When we go to the market to sell our produce, we sprinkle salt on the ground and sweep it up before setting up our spot. It is believed that every bad spirit will go away if we do that. Salt is very important. We use it in a lot of rituals,” says Koffi.
Julienne Dekon collects saline water using the traditional method to make salt in rural Benin. Credit: Neha Banka/IPS
These deep-rooted cultural beliefs were one reason why it was difficult to get the women to change and adapt to the ProSEL Benin project, even though it was backed by the Benin government, explains Abchir.
Traditionally salt production is a cultural activity carried out by the Xwla populations of the coastal zone in Benin. The traditional production of salt by the salt farmers in the villages is subject to many prohibitions related to working days, village deities, and so on.
“The name Xwlajè is also intimately linked to the Xwla ethnic group,” says Luc Obale, national project director of ProSEL Benin. The Benin government has been working to certify the salt so that it can be sold with the label ‘Xwlajè’ to identify its cultural origin.
“The old method is their ancestral way of producing salt, so it has significance. Sometimes when you change the way you produce something, some people believe it may have negative implications. The women could have got the salt directly from the sea, but there is a reason why they weren’t doing that before the project,” says Abchir.
The ProSEL Benin project targeted five areas in coastal Benin where people have traditionally harvested salt: Sèmè Kpodji, Grand Popo, Ouidah, Kpomasse, Comè and Lokossa.
“In those other areas, people have been more open to using sea water to make salt, but Ouidah is Ouidah. It is very special. They believe that the best salt can only be cooked, not dried. They believe that they have to cook it,” explains Abchir.
Ground-Level Interventions
The ProSEL Benin project is not the first intervention programme that has attempted to make local salt cleaner and more environmentally sustainable, but it has been successful because caseworkers managed to get it off the ground, says Cessi Marlene Capo-Chichi, who works with UNDP as a project coordinator.
“Organisations have struggled to convince the local community to change their ways,” she says.
Some 500 metres from where the ProSEL project is ongoing by the beach, within the limits of Djégbadji village, is a coastal lagoon where women work inside a network of thatched huts, making salt in the traditional way.
“The traditional way of making salt is more laborious,” says 45-year-old Julienne Dekon, lifting a cane basket heavy with saline soil collected from the marshy land that surrounds her.
These days, the Benin government prevents the chopping down of mangroves for wood, and women are encouraged to use dried palm leaves and coconut shells for fuel instead.
Dekon says that she wants to continue working using the traditional method, although many of her friends have now switched to the modern method of salt making using seawater after joining the ProSEL project.
As she begins boiling the saline water inside her hut, smoke fills the small space.
“When I have to work a lot, I do get tired. But I don’t know much about how this affects my health,” says Dekon.
Dekon doesn’t remember when she started making salt, but it has been a very long time, and she is now accustomed to preparing using the traditional methods.
“The method on the beach (ProSEL project) is easy to do. But when it is raining, it is not possible to do it outside. But I can continue to make salt even in the rain, because I collect the soil and start cooking indoors. The two systems are too different,” says Dekon, referring to the open-air concrete salt vats by the sea that are susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.
However, the wet weather also affects the women using traditional methods.
From April to August, Benin experiences its rainy season, with short spells of rain between September and November, and the low-lying marshes near the lagoons are prone to flooding.
“We are pushing them to switch to the ProSEL system because during the rainy season the area where the salt is produced traditionally is inaccessible. It is completely flooded, and so for more than half the year, there is no production of salt. We needed to give them alternatives,” says Abchir.
While it is easier for the women to avoid the rains by tracking the weather, it is harder to bypass the persistent floods, he says.
Abchir says the project focused on giving the women access to seawater to make sure they could make salt and have steady income through the year.
“Using the seawater to make salt is less painful. You just get the water and let the sun evaporate it. You don’t have to cook it, and it is safer. You can also make more money,” says Abchir.
Just down the unpaved road from where Dekon works, a woman stands by the highway selling salt.
The difference between the salt produced by women like Dekon, who have been working using traditional methods and those engaged with ProSEL Benin is clear: the traditional salt is visibly yellow-brown with streaks of grey, colours that come due to the lack of a filtration process. The ProSEL Benin salt is clean and white, fortified with iodine that the women mix into the salt just before filling it into bags.
A one-kilogram bag of salt produced by women using the traditional method, sold in local marketplaces and by the road, would cost approximately 800 West African CFA franc (approx. USD 2), while the same amount produced by ProSEL Benin would sell for 1,000 CFA.
For Public Consumption
ProSEL research indicates there are about 4,000 women harvesting salt in Benin. The country imports most of its salt from countries like Ghana, Senegal and India because its Indigenous salt farming covers only a small fraction of the country’s actual needs.
Stakeholders realised that it was not enough to teach the women how to make cleaner salt; they also had to be given access to markets to sell it. One market that the project aims to tap into is the World Food Programme (WFP) under the UN’s Benin office, which helps feed over 1 million children annually with daily school meals. The WFP has been undertaking research to understand the feasibility of purchasing and using salt through these cooperatives led by women under ProSEL.
The Benin government has ambitious plans for the harvested salt.
In December 2025, Benin’s food safety agency, ABSSA, the Agence Béninoise de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, certified the salt for public consumption, after which the salt was prepared to be sold under the label Xwlajè.
Presently, the Xwlajè salt is sold in seven different supermarket chains across Cotonou, as well as in standalone shops located in the municipalities of Porto-Novo, Cotonou and Comè.
“In addition, steps are underway to market Xwlajè salt in the duty-free shops at Cotonou International Airport,” says Obale.
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Abchir adds that a process that would take the women six hours now takes them two. Bringing about change has been difficult, he says, because it involved convincing people who were accustomed to working in a specific way for generations.
He admits that they wouldn’t have been able to do much without winning the trust of the women, their husbands who still oversee their lives, the mayor and the local community leaders.
“The local team went down to the women and understood their needs so that sensibilities could be understood and it would be accepted. It is very difficult in Benin when outsiders come in and tell them what to do.”
Abchir says that there is a high risk of undoing all that work if there is mistrust in the community towards the project.
“They are accepting the changes. Now we are trying to build construction for storage, keeping machines, etc. It is a sensitive phase, but we are hopeful that it will work.”
Benin’s government has prioritised tourism over the last few years, and its Indigenous salt farming practices are a key part of its plans to introduce tourists to Beninese culture.
The ProSEL project does not aim to fully remove the traditional method of salt farming, says Obale.
“The modern salt production unit is located not far from the traditional production site to allow tourists to see the difference between the two production methods,” he says.
Mireille Adjovi, a new mother in her 20s, has come to work at the ProSEL site with her infant sleeping on her back.
“With the money I get, I am able to take care of my children. I will be able to send them to school. I think about myself last: my husband and children come first. Maybe the men give money for the household, but women still suffer a lot. If women need something, husbands give the amount of money they want to give you, not what you need. The men don’t think about the women. So the project helps me earn my own money,” says Adjovi.
For women like Adjovi, making salt is not just about following the jobs women before her have done for generations.
She doesn’t know what the UN’s SDGs are or even what IBSA means, but the work at ProSEL Benin allows her to prioritise her own health and well-being while working collectively in a women-led cooperative.
When she talks to other women working at the site, she also thinks about the hard-earned independence and self-reliance she now has.
Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
IPS UN Bureau Report