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In Benin, local authorities struggle to attract investors and businesses, which limits economic opportunities and local employment. The majority of communal investments depend on funding from the State and technical and financial partners. Despite the existence of a legal framework for public-private partnerships (PPPs), local authorities are not fully exploiting private-sector opportunities.
To remedy this, the Citizen Participation in Public Policies for Local Economic Development (PartiCiP au DEL) project consortium (financed by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Benin) and the ReForme project (financed by GIZ Benin) organized the Private Investments in Municipalities’ Fair (Salon des Investissements privés dans les Communes, SIC 2024) in Cotonou on September 12 and 13, to help communes better “sell” the potential and resources of their terroirs, and connect them to financial partners.
The fair’s objective was to promote communal investments for the development of the local economy by highlighting promising projects and business opportunities, i.e. :
Of the 200+ participants at the fair, public administration executives from sectoral ministries, such as the Minister of Decentralization and Director of Territorial Collectivities ; municipal actors, in the persons of the Mayors and Executive Secretaries of the 13 participating municipalities ; private sector representatives (including banks, 26 CEOs of SMEs) and the diplomatic corps were in attendance.
Key highlights of the event were:
Upon the closing of the 2-day event, organizers and participants alike agreed on the following important next steps and actions to be taken going forward: