By Omar Bah
Cote d’Ivoire has officially joined The Gambia, Senegal, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Liberia on the Praia-Dakar-Abidjan Multimodal Corridor, a major regional highway project spanning over 3,000km across the eight West African countries.
According to a statement from a Cabinet meeting held Monday in Abidjan, the Ivorian government approved its participation in the development of the corridor, which stretches 3,164km and includes 600km of maritime links. Ecowas’s initiative aims to boost connectivity and regional trade, modernize infrastructure, and attract foreign investment to Cote d’Ivoire and neighboring countries.
The section of the corridor in Cote d’Ivoire, extending 790km from the Liberian border to Abidjan, passes through several major cities in western and central Cote d’Ivoire, including Toulepleu, Guiglo, Daloa, and Yamoussoukro, the Ivorian capital, before reaching Bingerville, just outside Abidjan. In Bingerville, the corridor is set to link with another regional highway that connects Abidjan to Lagos, Nigeria, over 1,028 km, passing through Accra (Ghana), Lome (Togo) and Cotonou (Benin).