Abidjan-Lagos highway will connect West Africa
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Abidjan-Lagos highway will connect West Africa
A new 1028km long coastal motorway will cross Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin.
A planned corridor highway between Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and Lagos in Nigeria will connect the West African transport corridors (airport, road and rail) and will link the inland regions of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to all eight ports in the corridor, as well as to the Abidjan-Dakar-Praia corridor.
The Abidjan-Lagos corridor highway will link the cities of five major West African countries by 2030 and is set to become a powerful economic and industrial hub.
Work is due to commence in 2026 and is earmarked for completion in 2030, the African Development Bank said recently during an online workshop.
Feasibility studies, financing options for the motorway and institutional arrangements for getting the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Management Authority up-and-running have already been overseen.
An economic corridor
According to the Director of the African Development Bank’s Infrastructure and Urban Development Department Mike Salawou, the transport corridor needs to become an economic corridor.
“This economic corridor approach also naturally overlaps with major urban development. It will support the growth of major economic hubs and improve links between large urban centres, secondary cities and rural areas within the five countries.
“We have also launched the Spatial Development Initiative to enable transformative industrialisation right along the highway, to stimulate the growth of major economic clusters,”
In a report presented by the consultancy firm responsible for devising the Spatial Development Initiative, 206 specific interventions were identified that could initially require primarily private sector funding investments of around USD6.8-billion.
The spheres targeted for transformative investment include energy, renewable energy, manufacturing, transport and logistics, agriculture and agri-industry, ICT, tourism, mining and special economic zones.
A driver of growth
The toll-free motorway will boast four to six lanes, with up to eight lanes in Lagos. After a drive of 82 km through Nigeria, the road will cover 520 km in Ghana, 144 km in Cote d’Ivoire, 90 km in Togo, and 127 km in Benin. There are also plans to build 63 interchanges.
Construction of the road is expected to generate up to 70,000 direct and indirect jobs. Most of the work will be carried out in the form of public-private partnerships,
According to Lydie Ehouman, the Chief Transport Economist and Project Manager at the African Development Bank says the road will link an urban population which is expected to reach 173 million people by 2050 and connect the most densely populated metropolitan areas in West Africa.
The infrastructure will connect the most economically dynamic cities and the most densely populated metropolitan areas in West Africa from Abidjan, Takoradi and Accra, to Lomé, Cotonou, Porto-Novo and Lagos.
This article was edited and published on the WhyAfrica website by Leon Louw, founder of WhyAfrica and editor of the WhyAfrica magazine.
Abidjan-Lagos highway will connect West Africa
