Libreville

Libreville is Gabon’s capital and dominant metropolitan centre, extending along the Atlantic coast through a dense mix of government districts, commercial areas and rapidly urbanised neighbourhoods. Its concentration of population and employment has placed persistent pressure on roads, drainage and access between peripheral settlements and the central city.

Current infrastructure planning focuses heavily on mobility. The African Development Bank’s PASIG programme includes more than 21 kilometres of road construction and upgrading in Libreville, with sanitation, street lighting and associated urban works, as well as transport studies and major junction improvements. Earlier World Bank programmes likewise treated neighbourhood infrastructure and municipal capacity as central urban issues. The city’s challenge is therefore to turn investment in arterial roads into a better-connected urban system, including drainage and local access rather than simply increasing vehicle capacity.