[budu3]

In fact West African countries have a centuries old method of making soap from locally available material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_black_soap

[Scoundreller]

While the base (ash in this case) can be locally produced, africa as a continent isn't a big edible oil producer/exporter, and that's usually the expensive part in soapmaking.

And one could argue that plant ash isn't the most sustainable source of base in making soap.

[samatman]

West Africa is the home of the oil palm, and doesn't need to go full Borneo to produce adequate amounts of fat for saponification.

[Scoundreller]

Maybe the home, but that doesn't mean productive. They're not producing enough to export, and seem to even be net importing it:

https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/palm-oil

But maybe not being well represented here indicates a healthy domestic market.

(and this data can be suspect: Netherlands aren't growing any, but might do some processing of some kind or re-export)

https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=palm-oil shows 84% of production being from Indonesia and Malaysia.

[sangnoir]

Why would you consider exports a useful metric here? Soap can be manufactured with oil for domestic consumption.

[wiether]

Shea oil.