Accra, Abidjan, Lome, Cotonou, Lagos 18th, June 2024 – The Transport Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission is concurrently holding five in-country pre-validation technical workshops in all the corridor Member States of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, from the 18th to 24th of June 2024.
The national level pre-validation workshops, which is to enhance country level buy-in from all sectors and stakeholders involved in the Corridor Highway project, form the first step of the validation process for the 3rd Phase (a Detailed Design Studies and preparation of Technical Specifications) of the feasibility, engineering design and financing strategy studies of the Highway. The first two phases, alignment definition; and feasibility and preliminary designs studies for the 1,028km road was completed and validated by Corridor Member States in November 2022, after a significant delay from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ECOWAS Commission is using the five ongoing national level pre-validation workshops to further ensure proper sensitization and involvement of all related sector institutions and experts in the review of the technical design reports, while helping the design consultants to receive contributions from stakeholders involved in the road infrastructure, cross-border transport, social and environment considerations, spatial planning, trade, industries, etc., to improve their designs.
The next step after the national validations, is to conduct a plenary corridor-wide technical validation workshop where the Project Directors and Engineers of all 5 countries, review and grant their final approvals to the detailed design reports for the corridor highway. Their approvals will also include tender documents to be used to select private investors and contractors to construct the highway. These are also all part of preparatory work to attract funding and support from international organisations, governments and private investors.
The Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway Development Project aims to construct a 6-lane dual carriage highway from Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire, through Ghana, Togo, Benin to Lagos in Nigeria. The five Corridor Countries have entrusted the ECOWAS Commission as the Implementing Agency in the interim, to design, procure, mobilize financing and construct the Highway. In the long term, a supra-national Corridor Authority, known as the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Management Authority (ALCOMA) which will be operationalized before end of 2024 will take over the project on behalf of the corridor Countries.
The Technical Studies for this regional flagship infrastructure development project is being financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), with contributions from the European Union and the ECOWAS Commission. The Corridor Countries also contributed $1.4m each to the technical studies and project preparation activities.
