IFC taps Nigeria’s market to boost Benin as West Africa’s next investment hub

When Vincent Arthur Floreani took over as the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Country Manager for Benin in 2023, the stakes were modest. The IFC’s office in Cotonou had just opened its doors, and the small francophone nation of 13 million wasn’t high on the list of investor destinations in West Africa. But Floreani saw something else: a tightly governed economy with rising…