Pythagorean Fuzzy-AHP (PF-AHP) Approach for Emerging New Risk Evaluation in China-West Africa Digital Trade Collaboration

The rapid expansion of digital trade presents transformative opportunities for South-South cooperation, particularly between China and West Africa. However, emerging new risks in technological, institutional, and sociocultural domains pose significant challenges to sustainable e-business collaboration. This study proposes a Pythagorean Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (PF-AHP) framework to evaluate and prioritize these risks under conditions of uncertainty and expert judgment ambiguity. By integrating fuzzy logic with AHP, the model effectively captures the vagueness and imprecision inherent in multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). Expert assessments from professionals in digital trade, cybersecurity, and risk management were used to conduct pairwise comparisons across three primary risk categories: Technological, Institutional, and Sociocultural Risks. The results indicate that Institutional Risk (weight: 0.3488) holds the highest priority, followed by Sociocultural Risk (weight: 0.3268) and Technological Risk (weight: 0.3244), highlighting the critical influence of cultural alignment, consumer trust, and behavioral norms in cross-border digital collaboration. The PF-AHP approach enhances decision reliability by incorporating membership, non-membership, and indeterminacy degrees, offering a robust tool for risk assessment in complex digital supply chains. This research contributes to the discourse on equitable digital globalization and provides strategic insights for policymakers and stakeholders aiming to build inclusive, resilient, and mutually beneficial digital trade ecosystems between China and West Africa.