World Bank Group West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program 2020

The Call for Innovation for the World Bank Group West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program 2020 seeks to identify innovative and feasible solutions to fight coastal erosion and flooding issues associated with the ongoing development of large commercial ports and maritime operations in West Africa, mainly for Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Togo, but with also an outlook for the rest of the countries in West Africa.

In most cases, existing ports were built with limited planning and considerations of potential exacerbation of coastal erosion. The significant threat is that this shortcoming is also occurring for designing and constructing new ports.

Deadline: July 1, 2020

Program Details

The scope is to identify innovations that allow to avoid, mitigate, and remediate the geomorphological and ecological impacts (i.e. coastal erosion and decline in marine ecology) associated with existing and planned commercial ports in West Africa.

Proposed solutions will need to be innovative, feasible and sustainable, and may include: infrastructures to be implemented along the coast to control erosion from existing and planned new ports; infrastructures to be implemented at existing and planned new ports and lagoon systems to control water flows and sediment loads; operation and maintenance practices for existing and planned new ports; Public Private Partnerships (PPP) business models and contracting options for existing and planned new ports.

Thematic Challenges

The Call for Innovation is open to proposals around the following four thematic challenges:

Thematic Challenge 1: Which type of infrastructure (green, grey, or a combination of both) could be put in place to manage the impact of port development and port management on sediment movements which lead to unwanted coastal erosion?
Thematic Challenge 2: Which planning measures and port and lagoon operation management practices could be taken upstream to reduce environmental impacts, coastal erosion and lagoon/canal water quality and flow management in particular?
Thematic Challenge 3: What new features of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) (i.e. Government Funding, Corporate or On-Balance Sheet Finance, Project Finance), business models, and contracting options could be proposed to take sustainability into account in the design and management of maritime transport related infrastructures?
Thematic Challenge 4: What are examples of good global practices in ports and lagoons management and successful case studies that could be proposed to West African countries to better manage the cumulative environmental impact of existing port operations and predict consequences of future infrastructures?

Benefits

This is a three-stage competition where the top 10, 5, and 3 proposals will receive different degrees of visibility and recognition, which will be tailored depending on the type and content of their proposals. In particular:

The top-10 Longlisted competitors will see a summary description of their proposals in a WACA Innovation Book at the end of the competition;
The top-5 Shortlisted competitors will be invited to present their proposal to a Demo Day, a live and virtual audience of World Bank Managers, Partners, and Investors. Their proposals will also be presented in the WACA Innovation Book.
The top-3 Winners will be invited after the Demo Day to individual follow-up meetings with the World Bank, in view of having their ideas pitched at an upcoming WACA Marketplace and receive additional media coverage.

Eligibility

Participants could be a single entity, or a consortium made of more entities.
To be eligible, an entity must be a university (public or private), a research organization (public or private), or a private enterprise (i.e. an engineering firm, a construction firm, or a consulting group). An entity can only submit one application only. Therefore, an entity that has already submitted a proposal, either alone or as part of a consortium, is not allowed to submit another proposal (either alone or as part of another consortium).

Application

To apply, download the form, fill it out and submit it via email to waca@worldbank.org by July 1, 2020 (midnight Washington DC).

Click here to download the form

World Bank Group West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program 2020