The ambitious Abidjan-Lagos Highway Corridor project, which will revolutionize connectivity throughout West Africa, will begin construction in 2026. The 1,028-km transnational coastal highway will connect Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria to create an economic corridor that promises to spur regional trade and development.
The project gained momentum at the 2022 Africa Investment Forum Market Days, where it secured $15.6 billion in investment interest.
The Africa Investment Forum, an initiative of the African Development Bank Group and eight other founding partners, is a platform that advances projects to bankability, raises capital, and accelerates transactions to financial close.
The African Development Bank has already contributed $25 million to fund the preparatory phase of the corridor project, which is of immense strategic importance. The route between Abidjan and Lagos is home to 75 percent of commercial activities in West Africa, with the transport sector representing five to eight percent of the region's gross domestic product. Transport plays an essential role in economic development and job creation, particularly benefiting women and young people.
Under the leadership of the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) regional grouping, the project received strong political backing in July 2023 when the leaders of the five participating countries - Patrice Talon (Benin), Alassane Ouattara (Côte d'Ivoire), Nana Akufo-Addo (Ghana), Bola Tinubu (Nigeria), and Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé (Togo) - demonstrated their commitment by establishing the Abidjan-Lagos Committee Management Authority headquarters in Côte d'Ivoire.
In September 2023, a groundbreaking roundtable under the auspices of the African Development Bank brought together over 30 major development finance institutions, including the European Investment Bank, British International Investment, the World Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank. The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development is also playing a crucial role in mobilizing resources for the project.
The completed highway will feature four to six lanes carriageway, expanding to eight lanes in Lagos. It will connect major economic hubs including Abidjan, Takoradi, Accra, Lomé, Cotonou, Porto-Novo, and Lagos - areas projected to host 173 million urban residents by 2050.
The project scope extends beyond transportation. The African Development Bank's sponsored Spatial Development Initiative has identified numerous specific interventions requiring approximately $6.8 billion in investments, spanning sectors from renewable energy to manufacturing and agriculture. The impact of these interventions is projected to be substantial: $16 billion in economic impacts and over 70,000 direct and 160,000 indirect jobs.
The collaborative role that governments, Multilateral development Banks and the private sector have played in driving such a transformative infrastructure project exemplifies the theme of this year's Africa Investment Forum Market Days, "Leveraging Innovative Partnerships for Scale."
The event, to be held from 4-6 December in Rabat, Morocco will bring together global investors, development finance institutions, and government leaders to accelerate similar transformational initiatives across the continent. Market Days is a three-day annual event that brings together project sponsors, financiers, governments and other key stakeholders to advance deals toward close.
The founding partners of the African Investment Forum are the African Development Bank, Africa50, Africa Finance Corporation, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) , the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).
