The International Finance Corporation and Côte d’Ivoire’s committee for the coordination of public/private partnership (Comité de concertation Etat/secteur privé- CCESP) recently organized a workshop to connect local suppliers to local leaders in the tourism sector.

According to Mariam Fofana Fadiga (photo), CCESP’ executive secretary,  "this initiative is aimed at facilitating contact between large firms in the tourism sector in Abidjan with the first round of potential local suppliers. This will help hone and identify business opportunities by determining the eventual support the program will have to provide for the successful implementation of its ambitions."

Alain Traoré, the senior private sector specialist at the IFC, estimates that "via job creation and added-value as well as indirect revenues generated by the supply chain, business tourism remains one of the key levers of economic development."

He also indicates that there are roadblocks limiting the positive impacts of measures initiated on the increase of the local market’s share in the tourism sector in Abidjan. They are notably information asymmetry but also the poor local supply unable to meet the quality, volume and trust standards of the demand.

Let’s note that this workshop falls within the framework of a broader subregional program aimed at developing the partnership between local suppliers and large local firms. Baptised Invest West Africa, the program is steered by the IFC with the USAID’s technical support.

Zeinab Dosso (Stg)