Benin - Stormwater Management and Urban Resilience Project

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings of the Benin - Stormwater Management and Urban Resilience Project for Benin were as follows: Outcome was satisfactory; Bank performance was satisfactory; M&E quality was substantial. Lessons and recommendations are as follows. First, integrate land value capture (LVC) instruments at design to improve fiscal sustainability and catalyze private sector participation. The operation showed substantial land value appreciation in protected areas, confirming that well-targeted flood risk reduction can create a second dividend beyond avoided damages. Future projects should identify and deploy suitable LVC tools to capture part of the value created along upgraded drainage corridors, reinvest proceeds to sustain operations and maintenance, and crowd in private investment for land development, redevelopment, and complementary activities such as hospitality, retail, and recreation that can expand local employment and the municipal tax base. Second, address large-scale urban challenges through government-led, programmatic multi-donor platforms. Embedding financing within a credible, nationally led program enables alignment across partners, leverages concessional resources, shares implementation risk, and can reduce unit costs through competition and economies of scale. Future programs should strengthen day-to-day coordination mechanisms to anticipate and resolve operational bottlenecks and actively design pathways for private sector engagement, including infrastructure co-financing, land development, and long-term operations and maintenance arrangements. Third, treat hydrological risk knowledge as a first-order deliverable and build the institutional capacity to use it in parallel. The development of a city flood model and data platform should be accompanied by targeted training and resourcing at national and municipal levels to enable independent operation, updating, and routine application for decision-making. Clear data-sharing protocols should be established across sectors so that flood event records, infrastructure inventories, and damage assessments are systematically integrated; model outputs should be institutionalized in planning, investment appraisal, urban development, and land-use management; and standardized risk metrics, such as Annual Average Loss, should be developed to inform prioritization and to communicate outcomes.