Societe Eiffage de la Nouvelle Autoroute Concedee The proposed Dakar-Diamniadio Toll Highway Project consists in:  (i) the construction of a 20 km section of urban highway (from Pikine to Diamniadio); and (ii) the operation and maintenance of the highway (24 kms, including a 4 kms stretch, build and transferred by the GoS) on a 30-year DBFO (Design Build Finance Operate) concession. SENAC (the Company or the Concessionaire), a Senegalese Special Purpose Company controlled by Eiffage, (the Sponsor) has been granted a 30 year concession for this PPP pursuant to an international and competitive bidding process organized by APIX, the government investment promotion agency (the concession agreement was signed on July 2, 2009).    This greenfield project, connecting Dakar to Diamniadio, was designed to alleviate the severe congestion affecting travel in and out of Dakar, Senegals main economic center, and will also serve as an anchor for a vast urban upgrading program undertaken by the Government of Senegal (GoS) with support of the World Bank (IDA), the French Development Agency (AFD) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), which aims to improve the living standards of the suburban populations around Dakar. The  proposed Project is the first toll-road designed on a PPP basis from its inception in Sub-Saharan African, and has significant development impact:   Improving access to Dakar, Senegals economic engine: today, with the acute congestion affecting the RN1, the only road in/out of Dakar, it can take over two hours to travel about 20 km. This congestion is a significant cost to the movement of goods and people out of Dakar. The Project will eliminate this cost, resulting in improved competitiveness of the Senegalese economy through better access to markets;   Reducing the cost of infrastructure development to the GoS: the Project will allow the GoS to build a modern toll-road, up to international standards and operated by a world-class operator, while saving about EUR90 million in upfront capital expenditure costs. This immediate cost saving would allow the GoS to direct the resources of its general budget to other priority expenditures  in particular, in the social sectors;   Improving the living standards of about 3,000 households: the Project is an essential component of a larger urban upgrading project, undertaken by the GoS with support from the World Bank (IDA), the African Development Bank and the French Development Agency, to upgrade one of the neighborhoods crossed by the Project toll-road (Pikine). As part of the Project, the GoS will implement a comprehensive upgrade and restructuring of Pikine, leading to a major improvement in the livelihood standard of about 3,000 households (for additional details, cf. available documents relative to IDA project number 4341-SN, approved by the Board of the World Bank on May 2009);  Raising private sector participation in infrastructure in Africa to new levels: the Project a first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa: this will be the first greenfield toll-road PPP in Sub Saharan African (excluding South Africa), conceived as such from the onset (there are a number of toll roads in Africa, but they are all expansions of existing roads or having the addition of a toll post construction). The demonstration impact of the Project will therefore be very high, demonstrating that well structured PPPs in the transport sector are feasible in Africa, and paving the way for the replication of such structures.