Africa Flooded with Substandard Used Cars from West, UN Report Warns

Between 2015-2018, the European Union, Japan and the United States exported nearly three million vehicles, 70% of which went to developing countries. Representing more than half of the exports, European countries export their old cars to the East, to Nigeria and Libya. The Middle East and Southern Africa receive those from Japan and Mexico and the United Arab Emirates receive those from the United States. All of this with a large contingent of diesel engines, undesirable on Western markets, reports AFP, based on this new UNEP report.

Vehicles on average 18 years old, with odometers exceeding 200,000 km on average. "Most of these vehicles are very old, polluting, energy-hungry and dangerous," hammered Rob de Jong, head of the UNEP Sustainable Mobility Unit.

In the lot, real wrecks, the oldest of which were shipped to Gambia and the youngest, destined for Morocco. Given that the world’s vehicle fleet could reach two billion units by 2050, and that China (which until 2019 banned the export of used vehicles) could join the ranks, to the point of carving out an important place for itself, the urgency is to regulate these exports, with "stricter quality standards" on the part of importers, recommends Inger Andersen, the head of UNEP.

He only mentions about 40 countries, including Chile, South Africa or Sri Lanka, which have rather strict rules in this sector. As for ECOWAS, it has decided to only accept vehicles that meet at least the Euro 4 standard and are no more than 5 years old.