Cape Verde: VINCI’s concession for seven airports begins – a model for Africa?

VINCI Airports’ 40-year concession on Cape Verde’s airports, which has just begun, will direct and focus attention on the tiny West African nation in the Atlantic Ocean and could become a model for the further privatisation that the regional Airport Council International directorate craves for the continent as a whole.

For any privatisation to succeed, the foundations have to be in place. For the most part that is the case in Cape Verde, where regulation, open skies, a secure economic base, political stability, tourist facilities and visitor demand have all come together to provide the best possible catalyst for an investor and operator like VINCI.

Although visitor numbers and tourism projections have undoubtedly driven VINCI’s investment in Cape Verde, the French company would do well to remember that it is not all about tourism. There are sustainability safeguards written into the contract, and even a sustainability-linked financing deal that is a first for all the parties.

And the indigenous population and Cape Verde’s widely dispersed diaspora must not be overlooked, either, in favour of maximising tourist charters into the two main islands for that activity.