The ministers in charge of road infrastructure of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria committed themselves during a meeting last week in Lomé, to accelerate the process of the development project of the highway of the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.
The officials, surrounded by experts and financial partners (ADB and EU in particular) of this ambitious program of regional economic integration, deliberated on the steps to follow.
In particular, the completion schedule for the studies of the last phases, the specific arrangements to be reviewed with regard to juxtaposed checkpoints, among others, free trade zones, measures to prevent rights-of-way, and the recommendations of the last meeting.
More than 1,000 km long and planned to connect the cities of Abidjan, Accra, Lomé, Cotonou and Lagos and their ports, the corridor will, when completed, be a six-lane dual carriageway highway.
According to the Togolese government, it will facilitate trade on an axis that transports approximately 44 million people and 130 million tonnes of goods each year, or 70% of West African traffic.