RAAF is a technical body that specialises in implementation placed under the aegis of the Commissioner responsible for Agriculture, the Environment and Water Resources. It reports to the Commissioner and decision making bodies of ECOWAS.

In light of the purpose of ECOWAP/CAADP, which is to promote food security and sovereignty as well as regional integration in West Africa, and the objectives of the agricultural investment programmes (national and regional), the mandate assigned to the Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food is to “ensure the technical implementation of the regional investment programmes and plans contributing to making the ECOWAS agricultural policy operational by calling on the regional institutions, bodies and actors with recognised competencies”.

Implementing the investment programmes requires the creation of sufficiently well-equipped and accountable governance institutions in an institutional landscape marked by the duplication of bodies and activities. With this in mind, the Agency is the technical institution through which ECOWAS can fully assume its sovereign role in accompanying the regional actors and institutions in the field of cooperation in implementing the investment plans. As such, the Agency is not directly responsible for executing the actions in the field, instead negotiating contracts with the technical institutions and all other actors demonstrating recognised competencies.