The African Development Bank Group, AfDB, has stated that two high-impact projects funded by the Bank will revolutionize Cote d’Ivoire’s energy and agricultural sectors.
This was stated by the AfDB’s Deputy Director General for West Africa, Joseph Ribeiro, during a recent three-day field visit to central African country.
The AfDB Director expressed his satisfaction with the progress of two high-impact projects – the Singrobo-Ahouaty hydroelectric power station and the Bélier Region Agro-Industrial Cluster Project.
For instance, the Singrobo-Ahouaty power station project, located 150 km north of the capital, Abidjan, is said to be close to completion.
“We’re more than 95 percent of the way through the project, and we should be finished soon so that we can feed the electricity into the national grid,” said Frédéric Roux, Project Director at IHE, the Ivorian investment company acting as a partner in the project.
According to a statement by the Bank, Ribeiro led the visiting AfDB delegation to the project sites. They included Blanche Kiniffo, Programme Officer for Côte d’Ivoire; Adama Moussa, Regional Sector Manager, Power Systems Operations; and project managers Rokaya Diallo and Mamadou Kane.
It added that the AfDB has contributed €40 million to the €174.3 million Singrobo-Ahouaty hydroelectric power station project, while key partners such as the Africa Finance Corporation and DEG also provided funding.
It entails the construction of the 44-megawatt plant, notable for being the country’s first private producer of hydroelectricity. The plant is expected to play a crucial role in powering Côte d’Ivoire and supporting electricity exports to neighboring countries.
Similarly, in Yamoussoukro, the Bélier Region Agro-Industrial Cluster Project (“2PAI-Bélier”), spanning 39 hectares of the industrial zone, is reportedly transforming the agricultural sector, through its innovative agropole concept aims to stimulate agriculture, achieve food self-sufficiency, and boost exports through agro-processing, particularly by small and medium-sized enterprises.
The project, which is 80 percent financed by the African Development Bank with a $121 million investment, is 85.7 percent complete since its launch in 2018.
The project has so far seen the development of 1,241 hectares of rice-growing plots, creation of 115 hectares of market garden areas, restoration of 92 fishponds, construction and renovation of four agricultural dams and the redevelopment of 542 km of agricultural access roads.
