Development Banks promote growth poles for agricultural development in Africa, without detailing the nature of policies that should be implemented. The purpose of this paper is to explore the types of national public policies that support agricultural growth poles in West Africa. We called upon the typology of policies from Daviron, Faivre, Dupaigre, & Ribier(2004) to carry out a literature review about agricultural growth poles in Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire and Senegal. We show that national policies aim at fostering the business environment in order to attract large foreign investments. However, action aimed at fostering spillover effects such as direct support to agrifood activities or coordination between actors of value chains and territories remains weak. Such strategy is explained by the liberal approach underlying growth poles, and the structural budget limitations of West African States. It however represents risks of unbalanced negotiation power, job destruction and environmental degradation.