In a statement published on March 25, 2016, World Bank announced it granted Benin a loan of $50 million to develop its tourism industry.

The funding which was taken from the resources of International Development Association (IDA), World Bank’s fund for world’s poorest countries, will be used to finance the “new project for competitiveness and cross-border tourism” (PCTT in French) and further diversify Benin’s economy, which still depends a lot on informal trade with Nigeria and cotton industry.

The PCTT project will be developed from 2016 to 2021. It will reinforce Benin’s 2013-2015 tourism strategy that aims to: expand and improve tourism while modernizing sites and infrastructures and by leveraging qualifications and quality of services; to promote tourism through marketing, brand strategy and developing ecotourism; and boost managerial and sectoral abilities by improving legislative, regulatory, and institutional environments, statistics and sources of financing for the sector.

“Benin has a significant natural advantage and possesses many important conditions necessary for the successful development of tourism, knowingly endogenous natural and cultural assets concentrated in coastal region which is compact and close to major potential source markets,” said Pierre Laporte, Head of Operations at World Bank’s division for Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.

“If we work to exploit this potential, tourism’s direct participation in the country’s GDP could grow to 30% and generate 30,000 new jobs according to estimates,” he added.

In Benin, tourism is presently the second source of foreign exchange and the third job-generating sector after agriculture and trade.