The ECOWAS Steering Committee on the 1,028-km Abidjan-Lagos corridor road project has adopted various instruments for facilitating the implementation of the project, including the adoption of the legal and institutional frameworks.A statement by ECOWAS Commission in Abuja on Friday said that the committee also adopted the terms of reference for the studies for the project, the project implementation, as well as the finance and resource mobilisation mechanisms.
The committee, comprising Ministers of Road Infrastructure, Transport, Public Works, Finance and Justice of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, also validated the proposals submitted by sectorial experts in an earlier meeting.
The road, which accounts for 75 percent of regional trade and impacts on some 30 million of the community citizens, links major cities such as Lagos, Cotonou, Accra, Lomé and Abidjan as well as the region’s dynamic sea ports while servicing landlocked countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
With regard to the implementation planning, the committee recommended that the Abidjan-Lagos Highway construction works should commence in 2014 and urged the stakeholders to do their utmost to attain this objective.
The committee also recommended that a feasibility study be conducted prior to securing sustainable financing sources and contracting the services of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Bank and the African Finance Corporation (AFC) as financial and project set-up consultants.
Brazil, India, China and South Africa, particularly China and India, should be approached with a view to securing the required financing.
The next Steering Committee meeting would be held in Accra, Ghana on 11 October 2013.
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