TALENT INCUBATOR

Urban transport in Cotonou, like in most developing countries, is marked by a crisis in public transport and disorganized growth in other means of transport such as two-wheelers. There has been a gradual rise in motorcycle taxi activities which draw great public interest as they require no training and are often carried out on an informal basis. Cotonou today has some 100 000 motorcyclists.
The proliferation and widespread use of these two-wheelers have serious impacts on the environment: they discharge extremely high amounts of greenhouse and polluting gases, damage air quality and pose serious public health problems. Motorcycle taxi riders are the most exposed, are ten times more likely to suffer from respiratory problems than people living in rural areas and their life expectancy falls to 40 years old compared with 54 for the rest of the population. More generally, it is estimated that Benin’s economy loses over 1.2% of its GDP every year, i.e. some 20 billion CFA francs, due to air pollution.
There is consequently a pressing need to mitigate air pollution in Cotonou. TALENT INCUBATOR has encouraged the implementation of an innovative program to replace the highly-polluting two-stroke motorcycles with four-stroke motorcycles which discharge almost 85% less greenhouse gas and are much less polluting.