Three Months Since Casablanca: From Vision to Transformation

Bangui, December 16, 2025 – Three months after the Investment Round Table in Casablanca, the Central African Republic is moving from pledges to practice. What was presented in Morocco as a bold vision under the National Development Plan 2024–2028 is now shaping reforms, investment priorities, and concrete projects on the ground.

Since the adoption of the National Development Plan the CAR has been charting a path toward ambitious transformation. The Plan is designed to turn the country’s abundant potentials and resources into engines of growth, while bringing projects closer to communities and consolidating political stability.

Casablanca as a Turning Point

The September Round Table in Casablanca marked a decisive moment for this new trajectory. Over two days, the government presented the country’s National Development Plan for the first time to around 500 participants – with projects spanning infrastructure, energy, agriculture, digital transformation, human capital, and governance reforms. Investment partners, international financial institutions, and private investors responded with strong signals of support: At the end of the conference, financing commitments totaling USD 9 billion were secured.

For Professor Richard Filakota, Minister of the Economy, Planning and International Cooperation, the ambition is nothing less than a fundamental shift in how the country uses its resources: “The revolution we want to carry out under the National Development Plan is to ensure that our raw materials and natural resources become fields of transformation. Through this transformation, we can generate added value for our national economy. The mechanism we have put in place therefore began with in-depth work with the private sector – because the financing of an economy relies more on the private sector than on investors.”

Financing a New Development Model

“The entire question of finance, the economy, and transformation is about how to guide our country toward its destiny – as a country capable of offering its diversity to international markets, whether in mining, agribusiness, or the digital sector,” Filakota highlights.

In this sense, Casablanca was not merely an investment event, but the presentation of a new development model: structurally transforming the economy, reinforcing the State, and anchoring growth in the real economy and local communities.

From Commitments to Concrete Progress

Three months on, follow-up has been purposeful. Flagship projects highlighted in Casablanca – in hydropower and electrification, road infrastructure, digital connectivity, agricultural development in the Ouham Valley, and women’s economic empowerment – have advanced along the project cycle.

At the same time, reforms to improve the business climate, modernize public administration, and strengthen public–private dialogue are progressing. These efforts give substance to the Development Plan’s guiding principle: that structural transformation must be driven not only by public investment, but by a dynamic private sector capable of creating jobs, exporting value-added products, and integrating the Central African Republic into regional and global markets.

A New Narrative for a Resilient State

The National Development Plan is recognized as a clear roadmap for the transformation of a resource-rich country still seeking its rightful place in the concert of nations. By mobilizing partners, investors, and citizens around a shared strategy, the Central African Republic can convert potential into lasting prosperity, consolidate state institutions, create employment, and offer its people a horizon of stability and growth.

The Casablanca Round Table helped shift the narrative: from a country primarily associated with fragility to one increasingly defined by resilience, reform, and opportunity. The challenge now is to sustain momentum, ensuring that every hydropower plant, road section, agricultural initiative, and digital investment brings the vision of the National Development Plan closer to everyday life for Central Africans.

Three months after Casablanca, one conclusion stands out: the vision is clear, the strategy is defined, and the political will is affirmed. The Central African Republic has shown that it is ready and is taking the first steps. The task ahead is to continue this path and to turn this readiness into results to ensure the CAR will become the next success story of the African continent.

Watch the full report by Africa24 TV on Minister Filakota’s reflection on the National Development Plan here.