Mr Mike Salawou, Director of the Infrastructure and Urban Development Department at the AfDB, said this in a statement.

NAN reports that  work on the 1,028km transnational coastal motorway is due to begin in 2026 and is earmarked for completion by 2030.

The highway connects Côte d’Ivoire to Nigeria while crossing through Ghana, Togo and Benin.

“Under the AfDB’s leadership, 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, ‘’he said.

He said the transport corridor needs to become an economic corridor, adding that this economic corridor approach also naturally overlapped 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.

“ ThebBank has inaugurated the Spatial Development Initiative to enable transformative industrialisation right along the highway, to stimulate the growth of major economic clusters,’’ he said.

Salawou said the consultancy firm responsible for devising the SDI revealed that 206 specific interventions that could initially require primarily private sector funding investments of around 6.8 billion dollars were identified.

He said 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.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission said its objective was to ensure that the corridor and its developed economic activities contributed to the ECOWAS regional integration agenda.

The Director of Transport at ECOWAS, Chris Appoiah, said this was an integrated project that, once implemented, would help achieve the economic union desired on the continent.

According to Appoiah, the toll-free motorway will have four to six lanes, with up to eight lanes in Lagos.

The director said that after 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. Road construction 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,

“The African Investment Forum, the largest investment platform in Africa championed by the AfDB and eight other partners, has been providing significant impetus to the project.

“ At the time of its “boardrooms” in 2021, 15.6 billion dollars in potential investment was pledged by various private and institutional actors for this emblematic project, which is one of ECOWAS’ key priorities,” Appoiah said.

Lydie Ehouman, the Chief Transport Economist and Project Manager at the AfDB, presented the preparatory studies for the project.

She said it would link an urban population that 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.

“The Abidjan-Lagos highway will connect the West African transport corridors (airport, road and rail) and will link the inland regions of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Abidjan-Dakar-Praia corridor to all eight ports in the corridor.

Head of Division in the Bank’s Infrastructure and Urban Development Department, Marco Yamaguchi, also represented the bank at the gathering. (NAN)