The Francoreal Real Estate Investment Summit was held on Tuesday 16 and Wednesday, October 17, 2018 in Dakar, at the Radisson Blu, on the theme of “developing real estate investment opportunities in French-speaking Africa”.
Victor NDIAYE, president and founder of Performances Group, opened the summit with a keynote speech on Emergence and Urban Development. Its message has, from the beginning, been clear: urbanization is not a consequence of development, but rather an accelerator of emergence.
Mr. NDIAYE, in fact, took the example of Singapore, city-state that, by optimizing its urbanization, has become one of the flags of emergence. Singapore is today a financial center of reference, a popular business destination, open to the world, an environment conducive to production and innovation.
Nevertheless, he stressed that massive urbanization, which is poorly controlled, can hinder development. In South Sudan, for example, 96% of the urban population lives in slums. According to Mr. Ndiaye, this produces the opposite of the expected effect, creating a vicious circle of overcrowding, under-productivity and especially poverty. Thus, where China, an example of successful urban integration, has invested $ 116 per capita in its urbanization projects, India has invested only $ 16 per capita, creating shantytowns as can be found in Mumbai or Calcutta.
In 2035, says Mr. NDIAYE, half of the African population will live in urban areas. Today, already, Lagos hosts 77 inhabitants per hour and Kinshasa hosts 65. To ensure control of urbanization, the founder of Performances Group identifies 5 levers: a long-term planning – as did Singapore between 1960 and 2010 , the implementation of urban development plans, innovative and alternative financing, public-private partnerships, as well as the choice of sustainable cities – ecological and connected. This approach would build a successful urban ecosystem, he concluded.
Created in 1995 by Africans who have worked for several years in world-class companies and institutions, Performances Group is today a leader in strategy consulting with institutions and companies in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa.