The African Development Bank (AfDB) is releasing €164.25 million for Benin. Of this loan, €45.5 million comes from the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), a debt fund set up by the People's Bank of China and the AfDB. All the funding will be used to reduce the risk of flooding in the towns of Porto-Novo, Ouidah, Bohicon and Abomey.
In Benin, the government has received new funding for the rainwater sanitation programme for secondary towns (PAPVS). This involves €164.25 million, including €118.75 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and €45.5 million from the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), a debt fund managed by the People’s Bank of China and the AfDB. The loan was approved on 5 July 2023 by the Board of Directors of the pan-African bank, meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
To this funding, the Beninese government plans to add €13.79 million for the implementation of the PAPVS in the secondary cities of Porto-Novo, Ouidah, Bohicon and Abomey. “In Benin, the number of municipalities at high risk of flooding has risen from 22 in 2010 to 35 in 2022, attesting to the scale of the phenomenon and its rapid expansion. The PAPVS is therefore intended as a response to the weaknesses of the rainwater drainage system in urban centres, through the development of rainwater drainage infrastructure”, says the AfDB.
Construction of primary and secondary collectors
Experts explain this phenomenon by a combination of natural factors, including rainfall, soil porosity and the horizontal topography of some Beninese towns. There are also human factors, such as construction in flood-prone areas, the retreat of mangrove swamps, the lack of sewerage treatment and water currents, and the proliferation of plastic waste clogging the pipes.
The Beninese government has divided the response work under the PAPVS into three components. The first will see the construction of 42.7 kilometres of primary and secondary drains and 62.3 kilometres of culverts, as well as the asphalting of 18.7 kilometres and the paving of 16.1 kilometres of roads in the four secondary towns.
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The project also involves setting up a waste management and maintenance mechanism (training, equipment, elimination of existing dumps) that includes a gender dimension, as well as strengthening the flood risk warning and management system. A water retention basin and a market garden will also be developed. The third component will cover the management, monitoring and evaluation of the rainwater sanitation programme for secondary towns.
The total cost of the PAPVS is estimated at €424 million. In addition to the AfDB, the programme is supported by the West African Development Bank (BOAD), which has committed €30.4 million to implement the programme in Parakou, and by the European Investment Bank (EIB), with a €110 million loan to implement the PAPVS in Sèmè-Podji and Abomey-Calavi. The initiative will also be implemented in the secondary town of Natitingou.
Inès Magoum
