On Dec 18, a grand ceremony was held at Dakar City Hall to celebrate for being the laureate of the 2nd Guangzhou Award. Mayor Khalifa Ababacar Sall and the Chinese ambassador Mr. Xia Huang attended the ceremony.

In 2014, Dakar stood out from 209 initiatives with its municipal finance program “Accessing the Power of Capital Markets to Improve the Quality of Life for the Urban Poor” and won the 2nd Guangzhou Award. On Nov 27, representatives from Dakar attended the Guangzhou International Urban Innovation Seminar and shared its innovative practice with city leaders and experts worldwide. Herewith the brief:

With rapid growth in its urban population, a large portion of Dakar’s population works in the informal sector. There was a pressing need for a central market place to accommodate its street vendors so as to improve their social and economic situation and to provide more convenient and hygienic conditions for consumers. But how to finance the project? Dakar decided to access capital markets to finance this project. Not only is it the first city to do so in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa), it is also one of the few cities in a developing country to do so without the benefit of full guarantees from central government. It enlisted financial and technical support from a wide range of organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development and Cities Alliance. A total of $4 million was raised for the project, while it’s equally important that the city now has access to a new financing mechanism to achieve its development goals. With this breakthrough, there is now a precedent for other cities across Africa to benefit from lower transaction costs and lower credit terms as well as less skepticism from investors as they seek mainstream sources of finance for their respective capital projects. 

For more information on this initiative, please visit at www.dakarmfp.com.