Your Excellency, Mr. Robert Beugre Mambe, Prime Minister of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire

Your Excellency, Mr. Jacques Assahore Konan, Minister of Water and Forest, Republic of Cote d’Ivoire;

Dr. Omar Alieu TOURAY, Chairperson of ECOWAS;

Distinguished Chief Executive Officers;

Members of Development Partners;

Distinguished Participants;

Ladies and Gentlemen, all protocols duly observed.

This conversation on water in West Africa Region could not have come at a more important time.

Across this region, approximately 45% of the population lives in areas facing high water-related risks, because of water scarcity, poor water quality, or both. At the same time, major coastal cities - including Lagos, Accra, Cotonou, Abidjan, and Dakar - are increasingly experiencing severe urban flooding associated with intense rainfall. These challenges remind us that water is not only an environmental or infrastructure issue. It is deeply connected to how we plan our cities, develop our economies, create jobs, build resilience, and prepare for the future. 

While there are a lot of challenges, there are also encouraging examples across the region. Countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Senegal are making important progress towards expanding access to water and sanitation services and creating a water secure environment for their people. Despite our portfolio of 31 ongoing projects for an envelope of USD1.5 billion, we really look forward to doing more supporting regional member countries. 

So perhaps this is a good moment to ask ourselves a critical question:

Could we look at water differently? Could we move beyond seeing water primarily as a social good in the sector, and begin to see it more clearly as an economic good and largely as an enabler of development?

The African Development Bank, through my humble voice today, is therefore very pleased to be part of this important gathering. On behalf of Dr. Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, our host country, and to ECOWAS for creating this opportunity for dialogue.

2026 being the Water, and as we prepare for the remaining high-level water engagements of the year, it was important for the African Development Bank, your Bank, to be here alongside ECOWAS. We see this gathering as an opportunity not only to discuss the challenges we face, but also to reflect on how we approach them as the region remains significantly off track towards achieving SDG 6 by 2030. This tells us that, alongside doing more, there may also be value in asking whether we need to do things differently.

Mr Prime Minister, Your Excellencies, Dear colleagues and friends 

First, perhaps we should allow ourselves to think bigger about water.

For many years, our discussions around water have understandably focused on access, infrastructure, investment gaps, and service delivery. All of these remain essential. But perhaps we can complement this perspective with another one: What if we looked at water as one of West Africa's strategic development assets?

West Africa has a young and growing population, significant renewable water resources, and some of the most productive agricultural areas on the continent. These characteristics invite us to think about water not only in terms of what is lacking, but also in terms of what water can make possible.

This may call for a more integrated way of thinking, one that connects areas that have too often been considered separately.  Rather than looking at water, energy, food, ecosystems, cities, and climate resilience through separate lenses, it is high time we increasingly explore what becomes possible when we look at them as parts of one interconnected system. 

This is very much the thinking behind the African Development Bank's Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus Investment Framework, launched last year in Dakar. The framework represents an ambitious investment programme of approximately USD 5.7 billion, by 2030. At its heart is a simple idea: breaking down silos can help us see opportunities that are difficult to see when we look at each sector in isolation.

This Forum can help us explore how that perspective can be translated into regional strategic investments replicable at scale, transformative, and capable of generating both social and economic value. In this context, we see considerable potential for even closer collaboration with ECOWAS, including in identifying and prioritizing investments that could benefit from instruments such as the regional allocation of the African Development Fund therefore supporting the regional integration agenda of the ECOWAS.

Second, perhaps we can also reflect on how West Africa engages with the global water agenda.

The international water agenda is evolving rapidly. Africa will participate in the 2026 United Nations Water Conference and the World Water Forum 2027, two important opportunities to contribute to the global conversation on the future of water.

This raises an interesting question for us: What would we like the voice of West Africa to bring to that conversation? What are the specific issues that are particularly important to our region? What solutions would we like to see receive greater attention?

And perhaps more importantly: What could we achieve if we developed those positions together?

This is why we welcome this first edition of the West Africa Water Forum. A platform such as this can provide valuable space for consultation and reflection making it easier for the region to exchange perspectives, identify common priorities, and, where useful, develop collective positions. Over time, such a platform could perhaps evolve into a more institutionalized consultation mechanism, helping the region to articulate, monitor, and periodically update its shared priorities on water. This could also strengthen West Africa's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals and to the objectives of the Africa Water Vision 2063 and policy.

Third, we should also reconsider what we mean when we talk about investment in water.

The needs are growing rapidly. Our young and growing populations require water for households, agriculture, industries, cities, and productive activities. Water is also closely connected to employment and economic opportunity, impacting 3 out of 4 jobs. This growing demand and expectation naturally call for more investment. But perhaps the discussion should not stop at how much infrastructure we can build.

It may also be worth asking: How can we make sure that the infrastructure we build continues to deliver quality services over time?

This takes us to project preparation, investment planning, institutional capacity, regulation, utility performance, governance, and long-term financing.

In other words, perhaps the shift we need is from thinking primarily about infrastructure delivery to sustainable service delivery. This is also where the private sector can have an important role to play not only as a source of financing, but also through innovation, operational efficiency, technology, and new approaches to service delivery.

The African Development Bank is keen to support this broader ecosystem through both its public-sector and private-sector windows. Moreover, through initiatives such as the Africa Urban Sanitation Investment Initiative, the Sustainable Utility Transformation Initiative, and the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus Initiative, we are exploring different ways of helping to scale investment and strengthen the impact of available resources. These initiatives reflect an evolving approach to help create systems that are more sustainable, resilient, and capable of delivering services over the long term.

Mr Prime Minister, Your Excellencies, Dear colleagues and friends 

Perhaps the most important opportunity offered by this gathering is the opportunity to look at familiar challenges from a slightly different perspective.

To see investment not only as infrastructure, but also as catalysts of sustainable services. To see individual projects not only in isolation, but rather as components of broader regional systems. And to see regional cooperation not only as coordination, but as an opportunity to unlock solutions that may be difficult for individual countries to achieve on their own.

The African Development Bank is very pleased to be part of that conversation.

We remain committed to working with ECOWAS, our Regional Member Countries, development partners, the private sector, and all stakeholders represented here to explore these possibilities together.

We have high hope that this Forum can be the beginning of a different way of approaching water in West Africa: more integrated, more collaborative, more forward-looking, and more focused on the value that water can create for our people and our economies.

I wish you all very productive and constructive deliberations, and I look forward to the ideas and perspectives that will emerge from this gathering.

Thank you, Merci