Long-Term Finance in Côte d’Ivoire Country Diagnostic Report

This 2020 diagnostic report by FSD Africa analyzes the availability and hurdles of long-term finance (LTF) in Côte d’Ivoire, focusing on infrastructure, housing, and enterprise sectors. It identifies significant funding gaps and a financial system dominated by short-term bank lending, which is further constrained by government borrowing and tightening regional regulations. The report provides a comprehensive set of operational and structural recommendations to deepen domestic financial markets and increase the supply of LTF.

• Côte d’Ivoire faces a substantial absolute infrastructure investment gap that is estimated to exceed USD 50 billion until 2040. When accounting for the requirements to achieve universal access to electricity, water, and sanitation in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the cumulative funding gap increases to USD 51.5 billion, with the most significant shortfalls in the electricity (USD 21.9 billion) and water (USD 22.1 billion) sectors.
• The housing sector is characterized by a deficit of 600,000 units, with an annual gap of 50,000 units, including a specific gap of 200,000 units in Abidjan. Housing finance is scarce, with loans to the sector representing only about 1 percent of new bank loans between 2012 and 2016, and outstanding volumes estimated at just 0.2 percent of GDP. Available loans typically have short maturities of 8 to 10 years, making them unaffordable for many households.
• Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face a significant annual financing gap estimated between USD 3.9 billion and USD 4.2 billion as of 2017. Approximately two-thirds of SME financing needs remain unmet by the formal financial sector, and 69 percent of Ivorian SMEs identify access to finance as a major constraint. Most SMEs rely on short-term credits or overdrafts, as they rarely have access to funding beyond three years' maturity.
• Government borrowing creates a 'crowding out' effect that limits the availability of long-term finance for the private sector. The government of Côte d’Ivoire relies heavily on banks to fund its fiscal needs, a process facilitated by the Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (BCEAO) providing liquidity to banks against government securities. This encourages banks to prefer 'risk-free' sovereign securities over lending to the real economy.
• The transition to Basel II and III prudential frameworks by the BCEAO between 2018 and 2022 is expected to constrain long-term lending in the short term. These reforms increase capital adequacy requirements (rising from 8 percent to 11.5 percent by 2022) and introduce stricter liquidity ratios, which may reduce banks' risk appetite and their willingness to undertake long-term lending and SME financing.
• Lending against real estate is severely limited by a lack of formal property registration and high transaction costs. Only a small share of properties are formally registered, and the land administration system is incomplete and weak. Furthermore, registration and transfer fees are high, and the judicial process for enforcing liens on real estate is described as costly, cumbersome, and lengthy.
• The domestic capital market is underdeveloped and lacks liquidity, with a small investor base and high issuance costs. The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières SA (BRVM) is dominated by government bonds, and corporate bond issuance is limited by disclosure requirements, high fees, and long approval delays. Market capitalization of shares listed across the WAEMU is only about one-tenth of the region's GDP.
• The framework for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is hampered by insufficient capacity in project preparation and weak institutional support for the PPP unit (CNP-PPP). Private sector involvement in infrastructure is largely concentrated in the power sector, but is constrained by the creditworthiness of state-owned off-takers like CI-Energies, which lack cost-reflective tariffs and require government guarantees to attract lenders.
• Institutional investors, including pension funds and insurance companies, contribute to 'reverse maturity transformation' by investing long-term savings into short-term assets, such as bank deposits, rather than long-term productive investments. They generally lack the experience, regulatory mandate, and risk appetite to invest in corporate bonds or project finance.
• Microfinance institutions (SFDs) provide a critical but small source of medium-term finance for informal SMEs, though the sector is characterized by financial fragility. While they are well-positioned to serve SMEs due to client proximity, their impact is limited by small balance sheets and a history of instability, exemplified by the failure of the large MFI UNACOOPEC.

APA

Fuchs, M., Hassler, O., Le Lesle, F., Rudo, D., & Witte, M. (2020). Long-Term Finance in Côte d’Ivoire Country Diagnostic Report. FSD Africa. https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CIV_LTF_CountryReport_EN_20200211_WEB.pdf

Chicago

Fuchs, Michael, Olivier Hassler, Franz Le Lesle, Dianne Rudo, and Makaio Witte. Long-Term Finance in Côte d’Ivoire Country Diagnostic Report. FSD Africa, 2020. https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CIV_LTF_CountryReport_EN_20200211_WEB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Fuchs |first1=Michael |last2=Hassler |first2=Olivier |last3=Le Lesle |first3=Franz |last4=Rudo |first4=Dianne |last5=Witte |first5=Makaio |title=Long-Term Finance in Côte d’Ivoire Country Diagnostic Report |publisher=FSD Africa |date=2020 |url=https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CIV_LTF_CountryReport_EN_20200211_WEB.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{fuchs2020longterm, author = {Fuchs, Michael and Hassler, Olivier and Le Lesle, Franz and Rudo, Dianne and Witte, Makaio}, title = {{Long-Term Finance in Côte d’Ivoire Country Diagnostic Report}}, institution = {FSD Africa}, year = {2020}, url = {https://fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CIV_LTF_CountryReport_EN_20200211_WEB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }