Côte d’Ivoire Barge Project for Enhancing Port Access and Trade in West Africa Receives MCDF Grant Support

A USD4.29 million grant to support the preparation of the Greater Abidjan Freight Barge Transport Development Project in Côte d’Ivoire was approved by the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) Governing Committee during its meeting in Beijing on 22 October. The project will be implemented by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The MCDF grant will fund activities to promote the sustainability of the project, which will establish a barge corridor along the Ébrié Lagoon to connect a planned terminal platform with the Autonomous Port of Abidjan, the largest seaport in West Africa. By diverting cargo traffic from roads to lagoon barges, the project will improve access to the port, increase its cargo-handling capacity, ease road congestion, and enhance trade flows, stretching to landlocked countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

An MCDF grant-financed pre-investment study will cover the project’s technical, economic, financial, and contractual structuring and preliminary environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA). It will be accompanied by an MCDF grant-supported ESIA consisting of a baseline data collection impact assessment, environmental and social management plan, resettlement plan, stakeholder engagement, and monitoring and report.

The MCDF grant will also fund technical and procurement peer project review work, with a port engineering expert and procurement and concessions expert to be hired to help realize high-quality project preparation based on the pre-investment study and ESIA.

These activities will help ensure that the project, Côte d’Ivoire’s first large-scale barging initiative, effectively protects the lagoon ecosystem and local communities and livelihoods that depend on it and thereby meets policy and standards requirements for targeted AIIB financing of lagoon access channel dredging and terminal platform construction. They will further set the stage for a public-private partnership to operate the terminal platform and potential barge services.