SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Tiny but ambitious, the West African country of Benin is racing to remake its cities. And while the new construction signals rapid progress, it is also creating new extremes. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu has been spending time in West Africa's fast-growing urban corridors. He has found that beneath the capital's new roads and buildings, a harsher reality is emerging.
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EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: A milky sunset hangs like a painting over a lively terrace filling with people dancing to live jazz. From a popular ocean-front bar in Cotonou, the sound of guitar strings spills out onto a busy and expanding strip of restaurants, bars and hotels.
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AKINWOTU: Several new businesses facing the Atlantic are being built along the coastal road lined with cranes. It's part of a broader transformation reshaping Benin's commercial capital of Cotonou, visible on a drive through the city.
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FANNY SENAN: (Singing in non-English language).
AKINWOTU: A new corniche is being built, with walkways and even gravel paths for barefoot therapeutic walks.
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AKINWOTU: New roads, industrial zones, monuments and museums are popping up across the country - and new markets, like a growing number in the heart of Cotonou.
We've just entered the hall of the Marche de Ganhi, and it's hard to be here and not be struck by just how sunlit and airy and seamless it feels to be here. It's an indoor market, but sunlight is pouring in from a metallic roof shaped like an umbrella. We're inside, but you can feel the breeze being funneled in from gaps in the brick walls and slits along the roof. We're upstairs overlooking several traders selling groceries, fruits, meats.
The market follows a new government blueprint to redevelop commercial areas in the country, but the changes only go so far. On the upper deck, 45-year-old Antoinette Hudou is selling packaged food, like spaghetti, tinned tomatoes and rice.
ANTOINETTE HUDOU: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: She says traders were furious when forced out during redevelopment, until they were awed by the new structure. But while the new market is cleaner and better built, there are fewer customers.
HUDOU: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: While the structures in Benin undergo a facelift, the lifeblood of the economy is running dry. The country is now one of the fastest-growing in the region, but on the ground, many haven't felt it. President Patrice Talon, a former businessman, argues raising taxes and investing in local production is spurring development and loosening Benin's dependence on its larger neighbors. The government claimed their reforms are already bearing fruit. NPR approached the government for an interview, but they didn't respond.
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AKINWOTU: But the transition is painful for a small population of just 15 million people, a third of which lives in poverty. And while redevelopment brings benefits in the city center, others on the periphery see it as an assault. Trucks, bulldozers and haulers line a newly constructed coastal road leading from the fast-growing outskirts of Cotonou to the historic port city of Ouidah. Long stretches of shoreline are being cleared for tourism with new homes and restaurants envisioned - but at a cost. In the week we visited, hundreds of coastal residents had been evicted and their homes demolished. Some of them are still searching through the rubble for belongings.
AHISSOU VERNANT: (Crying).
AKINWOTU: We find Ahissou Vernant in tears outside a string of destroyed buildings.
VERNANT: (Crying).
AKINWOTU: Most of them were homes and businesses and even a clinic, torn down because it didn't fit the development plans, pushing hundreds further out of the city.
VERNANT: We pay for the land. (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: (Non-English language spoken).
VERNANT: That we pay.
AKINWOTU: Dr. Dorothe Ahitcheme founded the newly demolished clinic. He built it because the nearest medical facility is almost an hour away, he says.
DOROTHE AHITCHEME: April or May, I was in this place, and you have one children who died. She has 12 years. And why she died? - because no hospital near this area.
AKINWOTU: It's a risk to be openly critical of this government in Benin, praised for its reforms while gradually cracking down on dissent. But the anger is unmistakable, not just here but in communities all along the coast and in West Africa, where the promise of development so often comes at the expense of those who need it most. For Ahitcheme, it's unforgivable.
AHITCHEME: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: "Why have they done this?" he says. "They're monsters." Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Benin. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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