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Till lately, it was tough to present instructions to Avenue Mathieu Ekra. Like 1000’s of different streets in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest metropolis, this quiet highway within the central enterprise district didn’t have a reputation.
However as considered one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies strikes to maintain up with speedy urbanisation, the highway was lastly christened this yr after an creator of the nation’s nationwide anthem, a part of an unlimited effort to call 15,000 streets within the burgeoning enterprise capital.
Within the throes of October’s election marketing campaign, the federal government has framed the venture as a key step within the nation’s modernisation — enabling ecommerce drivers and ride-hailing apps to navigate Abidjan with out calling prospects for instructions. As anti-French sentiment grips the area, the federal government has additionally seized the prospect to rename streets that honoured colonial-era figures.
“This venture is the need of the federal government of Ivory Coast,” stated Alphonse N’Guessan, the development ministry official overseeing the initiative. “As a result of financial development within the nation, it’s essential that individuals can transfer higher and discover locations faster. Issues have been tough earlier than. Whenever you have been going to a spot you needed to ask individuals the best way to discover the place you have been going.”
Ivorians go to the polls subsequent month in a vote anticipated to ship victory for incumbent chief Alassane Ouattara, who has dominated since 2011. Ouattara is running for a contentious fourth time period, arguing {that a} constitutional change in 2016 reset the clock on his tenure. Distinguished opposition leaders, together with former Credit score Suisse chief govt Tidjane Thiam, have been sidelined by courtroom rulings.
Ouattara, a US-trained economist and former IMF official who has overseen common annual GDP development of greater than 6 per cent, is pitching himself as an skilled chief who can handle the “unprecedented safety, financial and financial” challenges going through his nation.
The World Financial institution-backed programme is a part of a broader effort to enhance Abidjan’s competitiveness via “sensible metropolis planning, environment friendly and sustainable transport” and “a conducive enterprise surroundings”. It follows related World Financial institution initiatives in Benin, Ghana, Rwanda, Togo and elsewhere.
The hassle, which started a number of years in the past, has gained pace this yr with the set up of avenue title plates. Whereas the venture could appear prosaic in nations the place streets have been named many years in the past, it’s important in urbanising societies nonetheless taking part in catch-up.
N’Guessan stated it had already improved individuals’s entry to emergency companies. The federal government hopes having a transparent handle system might assist pull extra individuals into the tax internet — a necessity in a rustic whose tax take is 13.2 per cent of GDP, beneath the African common of greater than 16 per cent.
The federal government can also be utilizing the programme to shrug off its colonial previous.
The principle highway to the airport — as soon as named after former French chief Valéry Giscard d’Estaing — now bears the title of Ivorian founding father Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Boulevard de France is now known as Marie-Thérèse Boulevard, after Houphouët-Boigny’s spouse. And Marseille boulevard was renamed after former parliamentary chief Philippe Yacé.
The transfer by a nominally pleasant state carries appreciable symbolic weight since army juntas pressured French troops out of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, after seizing energy in coups.
Colonial grievances have additionally turn into a rallying cry for democratic change. In Senegal’s election final yr, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s leftwing Pastef get together received in a landslide in opposition to the incumbent coalition, which had maintained a robust relationship with Paris that was out of step with the nationwide temper.
The problem is a possible weak point for Ouattara, a longtime ally of French chief Emmanuel Macron. He adopted the area’s political winds in the beginning this yr by announcing the departure of French troops from Ivory Coast.
The road renaming, one senior member of his get together stated, was “the least disruptive solution to sign an insignificant break with France”.
Issouf Bamba, a shopkeeper in Abidjan, welcomed it. “That is just the start,” he stated of France’s probably waning affect in his nation. “What we’d like is not only altering names on the floor however significant modifications . . . we’d like our independence.”
N’Guessan stated the title modifications have been based mostly on analysis by a panel of consultants throughout a number of disciplines, plus non secular leaders and conventional chiefs. He stated they aimed to honour Ivorian luminaries and that France remained a “good buddy” of the nation. Many streets nonetheless bore French names and there have been no plans to vary them but, he stated.
Abidjan was simply the pilot section, added N’Guessan, who goals to label streets in 15 cities by 2030. They’re already beginning in key cities such because the political capital Yamoussoukro, Daloa within the west, Korhogo within the north and the central metropolis of Bouaké.
“These names are emblematic of Ivory Coast and its individuals,” he stated.
