Ivorian billionaire Jean Kacou Diagou's foundation to fund schools the government will run

The foundation attached to Jean Kacou Diagou's banking and insurance group has agreed to finance school construction across Côte d'Ivoire, with the government supplying the teachers and absorbing the buildings into the national system.

The NSIA Foundation and the Ministry of National Education, Literacy and Technical Education signed a memorandum of understanding in Abidjan on Tuesday. Neither party disclosed a figure, a construction timetable or a target number of classrooms.

Moustapha Sangaré, the ministry's director of cabinet, signed for the government. Amadou Kane, who chairs the foundation's board, signed on its behalf. The minister of national education presided, and Diagou attended as chairman and chief executive of NSIA Group.

The division of responsibility is set out explicitly. The foundation will finance and deliver the projects. The ministry will assign staff, put the infrastructure to pedagogical use, maintain it, and integrate it into the national education system. It will also run public campaigns on girls' schooling, literacy and environmental protection.

That arrangement puts private capital into public school building while leaving operating costs with the state, a structure that has become more common across francophone West Africa as governments face constrained budgets and expanding school-age populations.

The agreement covers five areas: school infrastructure and educational equipment, girls' education and social inclusion, literacy and adult training, artistic, cultural, sporting and citizenship activities in schools, and economic empowerment for women and young people.

Kane, speaking for Diagou, said the commitments would have to be converted quickly into measurable results. He named classroom construction, literacy programmes for women and the creation of opportunities for young people to reach economic independence.

A joint steering committee drawn from both sides will handle strategic direction, monitoring and evaluation.

The group behind the foundation

Diagou founded Nouvelle Société Interafricaine d'Assurance in January 1995 with 300 million CFA francs, about 457,000 euros, at a point when local investors doubted an Ivorian company could compete with entrenched European insurers.

He had spent his career preparing for it. He took a master's degree in economics at Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan and specialised in insurance at CNAM in Paris, then rose through the African operations of French insurers to a senior position covering the continent. He co-wrote the CIMA code, the regulatory framework governing insurance markets across fourteen francophone African countries, before leaving to compete in the market he had helped to write the rules for.

The opening came within a year. Assurances Générales de France withdrew from Côte d'Ivoire in 1996 and NSIA bought its life and non-life units, converting a startup into an established insurer.

The decisive move came a decade later. In 2006 NSIA acquired BIAO Côte d'Ivoire, the country's oldest bank, and combined it with the insurance business to create the first Ivorian bancassurance group. NSIA now operates through nineteen subsidiaries in twelve countries across West and Central Africa.

NSIA Banque Côte d'Ivoire reported net profit of 40.7 billion CFA francs, about $70.76 million, for 2025, up 7%. Total assets rose 22% to 3,073 billion CFA francs, roughly $5.34 billion, passing 3 trillion for the first time. Lending climbed 18% and customer deposits grew 32%.

Diagou tightened his control of the group last year. Through his family's investment vehicle, Manzima Holding SA, he raised his stake in NSIA Participations from 46.67% to 68.73% after the National Bank of Canada sold its 22.6% holding. Swiss Re remains a shareholder.

Forbes ranked him the second-wealthiest Ivorian in 2019 and fourteenth among francophone Africa's richest, valuing him at $405 million. He has not appeared on a more recent list.

He served as president of the General Confederation of Ivorian Enterprises from 2005 and has led the Federation of West African Employers' Organisations since 2010, positions that have made him the principal private-sector voice in Ivorian economic policy. He is a Commander of the Ivorian Order of Merit and an Officer of the National Order of Côte d'Ivoire, and composes religious music.

Neither the foundation nor the ministry has said when the first classrooms will be built.