Ivory Coast plans to turbocharge its economy with street-naming campaign

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Until recently, it was difficult to give directions to Avenue Mathieu Ekra. Like thousands of other streets in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest city, this quiet road in the central business district did not have a name.

But as one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies moves to keep up with rapid urbanisation, the road was finally christened this year after an author of the country’s national anthem, part of a vast effort to name 15,000 streets in the burgeoning business capital.

In the throes of October’s election campaign, the government has framed the project as a key step in the country’s modernisation — enabling ecommerce drivers and ride-hailing apps to navigate Abidjan without calling customers for directions. As anti-French sentiment grips the region, the government has also seized the chance to rename streets that honoured colonial-era figures.

“This project is the will of the government of Ivory Coast,” said Alphonse N’Guessan, the construction ministry official overseeing the initiative. “Due to the economic growth in the country, it’s important that people can move better and find places quicker. Things were difficult before. When you were going to a place you had to ask people how to find where you were going.”

Ivorians go to the polls next month in a vote expected to deliver victory for incumbent leader Alassane Ouattara, who has ruled since 2011. Ouattara is running for a contentious fourth term, arguing that a constitutional change in 2016 reset the clock on his tenure. Prominent opposition leaders, including former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam, have been sidelined by court rulings.

Ouattara, a US-trained economist and former IMF official who has overseen average annual GDP growth of more than 6 per cent, is pitching himself as an experienced leader who can manage the “unprecedented security, economic and monetary” challenges facing his country.

The World Bank-backed programme is part of a broader effort to improve Abidjan’s competitiveness through “smart city planning, efficient and sustainable transport” and “a conducive business environment”. It follows similar World Bank initiatives in Benin, Ghana, Rwanda, Togo and elsewhere.

The effort, which began a few years ago, has gained speed this year with the installation of street name plates. While the project may seem prosaic in countries where streets were named decades ago, it is essential in urbanising societies still playing catch-up.

N’Guessan said it had already improved people’s access to emergency services. The government hopes having a clear address system could help pull more people into the tax net — a necessity in a country whose tax take is 13.2 per cent of GDP, below the African average of more than 16 per cent.

The government is also using the programme to shrug off its colonial past.

The main road to the airport — once named after former French leader Valéry Giscard d’Estaing — now bears the name of Ivorian founding father Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Boulevard de France is now called Marie-Thérèse Boulevard, after Houphouët-Boigny’s wife. And Marseille boulevard was renamed after former parliamentary leader Philippe Yacé.

The move by a nominally friendly state carries considerable symbolic weight since military juntas forced French troops out of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, after seizing power in coups.

Colonial grievances have also become a rallying cry for democratic change. In Senegal’s election last year, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s leftwing Pastef party won in a landslide against the incumbent coalition, which had maintained a strong relationship with Paris that was out of step with the national mood.

The issue is a potential weakness for Ouattara, a longtime ally of French leader Emmanuel Macron. He followed the region’s political winds at the beginning this year by announcing the departure of French troops from Ivory Coast.

The street renaming, one senior member of his party said, was “the least disruptive way to signal an insignificant break with France”.

Issouf Bamba, a shopkeeper in Abidjan, welcomed it. “This is just the beginning,” he said of France’s potentially waning influence in his country. “What we need is not just changing names on the surface but meaningful changes . . . we need our independence.”

N’Guessan said the name changes were based on research by a panel of experts across multiple disciplines, plus religious leaders and traditional chiefs. He said they aimed to honour Ivorian luminaries and that France remained a “good friend” of the country. Many streets still bore French names and there were no plans to change them yet, he said.

Abidjan was just the pilot phase, added N’Guessan, who aims to label streets in 15 towns by 2030. They are already starting in key cities such as the political capital Yamoussoukro, Daloa in the west, Korhogo in the north and the central city of Bouaké. 

“These names are emblematic of Ivory Coast and its people,” he said.