The signing ceremony for a zone or a partnership takes one morning. The land title, the power line and the customs desk that make it real take years, and the private partner carries that wait on its own balance sheet.
Key takeaways
- Senegal frames its PPPs in one law, adopted in March 2021. Côte d’Ivoire runs them through two decrees of March 2018 and a steering committee attached to the Presidency.
- Private commitments in Sub-Saharan African infrastructure reached $7.9 billion in 2024, according to the World Bank. West and Central Africa took $1.4 billion of it.
- A special economic zone sells a tax regime. The investor still has to secure land, power and an approval that holds.
- A framework agreement sets the rules. Volumes arrive with each funded call-off order, and only then.
Most operators meet the public-private partnership through its most visible form: a ministerial visit, a signed convention, a photograph. What follows is less photogenic. A contracting authority has to budget the project, an expert unit has to review it, a land agency has to deliver a plot with a clean title, and the utility has to bring a line to the fence. Each step has its own office and its own calendar. This article walks through the two instruments a private company in agri-inputs, agro-processing or logistics will meet most often in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire: the special economic zone and the framework agreement.
Two countries, two legal architectures
Senegal adopted Law No. 2021-23 of 2 March 2021 on public-private partnership contracts. It replaced the 2014 law and brought concessions, public service delegations and partnership contracts under a single framework. The implementing decree, No. 2021-1443 of 27 October 2021, organises the National Unit for PPP Support (UNAPPP), which the Ministry of Economy describes as the expert body in charge of prior review and technical assistance across the project cycle, from identification onwards.
Côte d’Ivoire has no PPP law. Two decrees dated 29 March 2018, No. 2018-358 on PPP contracts and No. 2018-359 on the steering framework, set the rules. The National PPP Steering Committee (CNP-PPP), attached to the Presidency, validates the annual programme of projects, supports contracting authorities through feasibility and contract execution, and manages a fund for project studies.
For a private sponsor, the difference is practical. In Dakar, the file follows a procedure written in law, with a named unit giving its opinion at defined stages. In Abidjan, the CNP-PPP acts as the engineering counterpart from the feasibility study onwards, and a project that sits outside its annual programme waits. In both capitals, the first question to ask a ministry is the same: is this project in the programme, and which line of the budget carries the public share?
What the money says
The World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure report for 2024 counts $7.9 billion of private investment commitments in Sub-Saharan Africa across 47 projects, up 133 percent from $3.4 billion in 2023. The same report puts West and Central Africa at $1.4 billion across 12 projects in 10 countries. Senegal accounted for 56 percent of that regional total, with three projects worth $805 million, including the Saint-Louis combined-cycle gas plant at $475 million. Energy came first by sector, transport second.
Read the pattern. Private capital goes where a contract fixes the revenue: a power purchase agreement with a creditworthy offtaker, a toll, a port concession. An agro-processing park or a fertiliser blending hub competes for the same lenders with a weaker answer to the question every credit committee asks first: who pays, how much, and from which account? Sponsors who win in agriculture borrow the logic of the power sector. They bring a signed offtake, a price formula and a payment security before they bring a site plan. Our note on what DFIs look for in an impact thesis covers the lender’s side of that conversation.
The special economic zone: a tax regime that still needs land, power and a desk
Senegal’s Law No. 2017-06 of 6 January 2017 on special economic zones replaced the 2007 framework and set one governance regime for all zones. Each zone is created by its own decree, which fixes its boundaries and cadastral references. The national investment agency, APIX, offers serviced land in the zones and guides investors through land procedures.
The tax holiday is the cheapest promise a state can make. The power line costs more, and the land title costs the most time. Before committing capital to a zone, a sponsor should obtain written answers on five points:
- Land. Who holds the title, under which regime, who signs the lease, and whether any former user of the plot still has a claim to settle.
- Utilities. A connection date for power and water, in writing, with the applicable tariff and the party paying for the last kilometre of line.
- Approval. The procedure, the deadline and the signatory of the company’s approval as a zone enterprise, since the benefits attach to that approval and not to the plot.
- Stability. What the convention says if a later finance law changes the regime, and which forum settles a dispute.
- Exit. Whether the approval transfers to a buyer if the sponsor sells the plant.
An investor who cannot get these five answers on paper is buying a brochure. One who gets them can build a financial model that a bank will read.
Framework agreements: read them as options
The framework agreement is the instrument most agri-input suppliers meet first: a state, a public agency or a programme agrees with a supplier on price formula, specifications, delivery terms and payment mechanics for a period, then issues call-off orders as budgets open. Fertiliser subsidy programmes and equipment supply often work this way.
The signature sets the rules of the game and commits no tonnage. Each call-off order needs a budget line, a commitment by the public treasury and a payment calendar. A supplier who stocks product on the strength of a framework agreement alone finances the state at its own cost. Before signing, check four clauses: the price formula and its reference index, so that a freight or currency move does not wipe out the margin; the payment security attached to each order, such as a letter of credit or a treasury guarantee; the delivery window, set against the planting calendar of the crop; and dispute resolution, where OHADA arbitration through the CCJA in Abidjan gives both parties a known forum.
A framework agreement without a budget line is a letter of intent with a stamp. Treat it as an option to sell, priced and managed as such, and size the working capital on funded orders only.
Where C2A comes in
We work on the private side of the table. For sponsors entering a zone or answering a public programme, we map the institutions involved, prepare the file for the CNP-PPP in Abidjan or the UNAPPP in Dakar, turn land, utility and approval questions into written conditions precedent, and read framework agreements clause by clause before signature. When the project needs debt, we assemble the bankable financing file that lenders expect, with the offtake and payment security in front.
Weighing a zone or a public framework agreement?
Bring us the convention or the draft agreement. In one session, we list the clauses that carry your risk and the questions to put to the public side before you sign.