The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved additional funding worth over US $13m for the implementation of the Abidjan–Lagos motorway corridor development project.
The loan, which will particularly be used to cover part of the costs related to the study of the project, was requested by ECOWAS commission on behalf of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, the West African states whose capitals will be linked by the approximately 1,028 km road featuring eight border posts.
The road currently cuts across the major economic centers of the five participating member countries, from Bingerville in Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Mile 2 also known as Eric Moore in Lagos, Nigeria.
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Importance of the Abidjan – Lagos project
The Abidjan – Lagos motorway corridor is an important regional trade and transport corridor that aims to strengthen trade and integration in West Africa, by providing maritime port access to landlocked countries to be precise.
This road axis joins other corridors along the North-South axis and connects countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Chad which are entirely surrounded by land, and it crosses a rail network and joins the main ports and airports in the West African region.
“The transportation sector plays a very important role in the economic development of the West African region and it brings in approximately 5 to 8% of its gross domestic merchandise. However, the unavailability of tangible and intangible infrastructure significantly reduces its impact on regional economic growth,” said AfDB on a press release.
The Abidjan – Lagos corridor project is a part of the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) been executed by the pan African institution. It is also a component of the large Dakar – Lagos coastal corridor project and constitutes an important section of the trans-African road network.
