Espelia supports the implementation of two major affordable housing projects in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire

Since September 2019, a consortium led by Espelia and ICEA has been supporting the governments of Senegal et Ivory Coast in the implementation of two affordable housing operations:

• The Daga Kholpa project, a 3,000-hectare operation designed to accommodate part of Dakar's urban growth in the coming years, as it is located in the continuity of the new Diamniadio business centre, on the Dakar-Thies axis, 50 km from central Dakar, and close to the new Dakar international airport;
• The Songon Kassemblé project, a 439 ha site located in the commune of Songon, 30 km west of the centre of Abidjan, on which the Ivorian government aims to build 17,000 homes as part of its presidential social housing programme.

More than just housing construction operations, these projects aim to create real urban poles on the outskirts of Dakar and Abidjan, in order to relieve congestion in the urban centres and rebalance the development of the two agglomerations. They are part of national policies aiming to promote the development of affordable housing in order to alleviate the housing crisis experienced by these two countries as a result of rampant urbanisation.

However, both operations are facing significant financial and operational difficulties, resulting in a significant delay in their implementation.

Given their strategic nature for the success of the national programmes, the West African Economic and Monetary Union wished to recruit a support consultant to assist the States in improving the financial and operational soundness of the operations.

More specifically, the group's mission will be 1/ to identify the various bottlenecks explaining the delay in the implementation of the two operations, 2/ to formulate recommendations to improve the design, set-up and monitoring of the operations, 3/ to strengthen the governments' capacity to successfully manage these operations, through the provision of tools and methods co-constructed with the stakeholders

While the aim of the consultancy is above all to accelerate the completion of these two operations, the lessons learned from this support will be used to promote the implementation of other affordable housing operations underway and to come in Ivory Coast and Senegal.

Financed by the World Bank, this advisory mission is part of a $130,000,000 financing granted to the West African Development Bank to promote the financing of the supply and demand of affordable housing in the WAEMU zone.