FROM VISION TO DELIVERY: THE FOUR KEY SUCCESS FACTORS OF THE TCHAD CONNEXION 2030 PLAN

Across Africa, national development plans are multiplying, often setting highly ambitious goals that combine faster growth, economic transformation, and the creation of quality jobs. Yet, in many cases, these objectives struggle to translate into concrete opportunities.

Adopted in May 2025, Tchad Connexion 2030 (TC2030) embodies both this ambition and this challenge. With USD 30 billion in planned investments, a target of 8 percent annual growth, and the promise of lifting 2.5 million Chadians out of poverty by 2030, the Plan offers a structured vision for economic transformation. With its four domains (infrastructure, social policies, economic development, and the business environment), it includes 17 programs and more than 268 projects and reforms. The UAE–Chad Trade and Investment Forum, held in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, bringing together donors and private investors, aimed to mobilize the financing needed for its implementation.

However, one essential question remains: what factors will truly make it possible to turn this vision into large-scale job creation? The history of African development plans is full of good intentions that ran up against the same obstacles: growth concentrated in capital-intensive sectors - and therefore with limited job creation- a private sector that struggles to take off, underinvested human capital, reforms announced but only partially implemented, and implementation capacity that weakens halfway through. Chad has already faced this challenge: its National Development Plan, “PND 2017–2021,” launched in 2016, had attracted more than USD 20 billion in investment pledges. Yet, ten years later, the results in terms of economic impact and job creation remain poorly documented, raising questions about its success.

Drawing on the dynamics of the Chadian labor market, this article highlights four decisive levers for making Tchad Connexion 2030 a genuine engine of job creation, and it points to the risks that, if not anticipated, could lead to growth without prosperity.

1. The composition of growth matters more than its volume

The Plan’s growth scenario projects average annual growth of 8 percent over 2025–2030, driven largely by the secondary sector (+11.4 percent per year). Projected growth in the primary sector is, in turn, mainly driven by mining extraction (+37 percent), which, it should be recalled, is a capital-intensive sector and therefore unlikely to generate many local jobs per dollar invested. The Plan also provides massive investments in infrastructure (roads, energy, digital), which alone account for 37 percent of the Plan’s budget. While these infrastructures are necessary to unlock the territory and create the conditions for a modern economy, they do not directly create large numbers of jobs, especially if the work relies on expatriate labor due to a lack of locally available skilled technicians. The message for decision-makers and development partners is therefore clear: the issue is not simply to invest more, but to channel these investments toward sectors where each dollar creates the greatest number of sustainable jobs.

2. A dynamic local business base for massive job creation

TC2030 gives an important and well-justified place to private sector development, the attraction of foreign direct investment, and public-private partnerships. These directions are essential, but they are not enough on their own to guarantee large-scale job creation.

The reality of the Chadian labor market calls for particular realism on this point. In 2021, 95 percent of total employment was in the informal sector, the underemployment rate stood at more than 40 percent, and the economic dependency ratio was 2.2, according to statistics from INSEED. In this context, expecting FDI and large PPPs to generate enough jobs to absorb demographic flows is to misunderstand the deep structure of the Chadian economy. Instead, much of the effort should rely on local entrepreneurs to develop a more formal economy: the trader who turns a shop into a formal business, the livestock breeder who gains access to a modern slaughterhouse, the woman who develops a shea-processing unit with access to microcredit.

Although TC2030 has integrated this reality into several of its programs, the gap between ambition and impact remains considerable. What is still missing is the ecosystem: accessible business support centers in all 23 provinces, operational bank guarantee mechanisms, and structured value chains that allow small producers to sell under decent conditions. Without this basic ecosystem, the expected economic impact of these investments will be difficult to achieve.

3. Human capital: a rather pessimistic starting point

All the plan’s ambitions rest on a rarely mentioned implicit condition: that a qualified local workforce will be available to implement, operate, and maintain the planned investments.

Chad ranks at the bottom of the CEMAC countries in terms of human capital, with a Human Capital Index of 0.30 (World Bank), meaning that a child born today will reach only 30 percent of his or her educational and productive potential by age 18.

Basic education indicators are among the weakest in sub-Saharan Africa. Primary completion stands at 36 percent for girls and 45 percent for boys (World Bank 2021). Access to higher education is overwhelmingly male (81 percent men), and it is also poorly aligned with labor market needs. The working-age population with advanced education represents only 3.6 percent of the labor force (ILO). These figures are not merely social indicators: they define the pool from which the vocational training system can draw. It is impossible to train an industrial electricity technician or an agricultural cooperative manager without a minimum level of basic skills.

Program 5 of TC2030 takes this challenge into account and sets out concrete commitments: developing a 10-year national vocational training strategy, creating guidance structures for technical occupations, strengthening partnerships with the private sector for apprenticeship-based training, and establishing a regulatory agency for private training providers. These are the right directions. But they still need to overcome a major institutional obstacle.

The paradox of major investments

It is useful here to make this challenge concrete. TC2030 plans to build 7,000 km of roads, sugar processing plants, and a new airport in N’Djamena. Each of these projects requires engineers, maintenance technicians, and skilled operators. If these profiles are not available locally, two scenarios emerge: either the projects rely on expatriate labor - which reduces the impact on local employment and increases costs - or they are carried out with unskilled labor, which undermines quality and sustainability. In both cases, the risk of “white elephants” is real.

4. Implementation capacity: the decisive factor

Behind each of the three previous levers lies the same fundamental question: who will implement, coordinate, and uphold commitments over time?

TC2030 does not sidestep this issue. Indeed, the Plan explicitly provides for an Implementation Support Unit inspired by the delivery units of Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire, with guiding principles such as a systematic focus on results, flexibility depending on financing, and rigorous performance monitoring. The Plan also acknowledges the limits of previous initiatives, which were marked by vague objectives, unreliable data, insufficient coordination, and blurred accountability. In this context, strengthening the capacities of the agents responsible for implementation appears to be a prerequisite for the Plan’s success.

By Mahamat Moussa Koumo, Economist-Statistician
*The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the African Development Bank Group or the EInA initiative.

Références

1. Banque mondiale (2018). Instantanés du capital humain de la CEMAC : Tchad.
2. Gouvernement du Tchad (2025). Plan de Développement « Tchad Connexion 2030 ». Ministère des Finances, du Budget, de l’Économie, du Plan et de la Coopération Internationale, mai 2025.
3. Gouvernement du Tchad (2027). Plan National de Développement «PND 2017-2021». Ministère des Finances, du Budget, de l’Économie, du Plan et de la Coopération Internationale, mai 2025.
4. INSEED (2025). Indicateurs économiques, démographiques et sociaux. Institut National de la Statistique, des Études Économiques et Démographiques (INSEED), Tchad.
5. Organisation internationale du travail (OIT). ILOSTAT – Base de données statistiques sur le marché du travail.