A Strategic Retreat by members of UNDP’s African Influencers for Development (AI4Dev) Super Group took place from the 30th of November to the 1st of December 2021 in Mindelo Cabo Verde.

The two day retreat hosted by M. Samba Bathily CEO of the ADS GROUP, focused on the conceptualization of a new framework to finance sustainable development goals and create true wealth in Africa.

Opening the discussions, Mrs. Ahunna Eziakonwa, UNDP regional director, stressed the fact that the retreats venue, the Mansa floating Hub (@mansafloatinghub), represents “made in Africa”.

At night, the Mansa Floating Hub dazzles. The mix of disco and neon lights kissing the Atlantic and then back to shore adds to the glamour and life at the hub.
Situated in the beautiful bay of Mindelo, on São Vicente Island in Cape Verde, Mansa is a hub for creatives, artists, and activists.
Its founders say the place will act as a catalyst for content creation, while also giving creatives a space to integrate and a chance for mentorship to foster tangible pan-Africanism.
The hub for us is a space, a platform, for all African creators and the whole world so that they can find themselves, create and flourish. Whether in fashion, in music, in the kitchen – in any art in general,” says businessman Samba Bathily, the brain behind Mansa.

An honor to inaugurate the Mansa Floating Hub tonight, which represents a concept, a vision that meets the vision of the government. Congratulations to Samba Bathily for his vision, ambition and investment. The Mansa Floating Hub is a reference in Mindelo, a gateway from Africa to the world. It is the synthesis of what we understand must be the world. The same thing in culture, in technology, tourism, our job is to be a platform country.
I wish you every success. Count on the Government of Cape Verde as an interested and proactive partner in the development of this enterprise.

The floating biomass was inaugurated yesterday in Mindelo. According to Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva, this infrastructure is an open door for the promotion of Cape Verde in Africa, in the creative industries.
Investor Samba BATHILY believes that Mansa Floating Hub is a branch of tourism, culture and everything that Cape Verde has in terms of creativity.

The West African island of São Vicente, Cape Verde, has vibrant musical and cultural scenes, which with the opening of the new Floating Music Hub now extend to the bay of Mindelo, its capital city. This project from architect and designer Kunlé Adeyemi consists of three separate but linked timber pavilions: a recording studio; a bar; and a multi use performance space to spotlight African music, dance and art.

International design practice NLÉ has unveiled its designs for the MFS IV, a prefabricated Floating Music Hub for the port city of Mindelo in Cape Verde. Developed as the fourth prototype of the firm’s Makoko Floating System, the project is the first in the series to be built in the Atlantic Ocean. The prefabricated floating hub, which is currently under construction, will consist of a cluster of three buildings of varying sizes that will house a large multipurpose performance hall, a professional recording studio and a small service bar.

Construction of a floating music hub has begun in Porto Grande Bay, also known as Mindelo Bay and which is situated on the north coast of the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde, Western Africa.
The project is mainly a trio prefabricated floating hub, which consists of a multipurpose performance hall, a professional recording studio, and a service bar. The three vessels will be anchored around a triangular floating public plaza.

NLÉ and Kunlé Adeyemi have designed the prefabricated floating music hub currently in construction off the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde.

According to Kunle Adeyemi, the architect who designed the vessel, Mansa Floating Hub is more than a floating music. It’s a call to african whether in the diaspora or african Americans to home to the continent. It’s also a tribute to african contemporary design and a window into the rewrite new narratives of the african continent.

The island nation of Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, may be tiny, but it has an outsized influence. Once a slave port, it is now an important international commercial hub, and a cultural melting pot, bridging African and European traditions.
Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente, has been central in the development of the local musical tradition. It also became the home for Adeyemi and Bathily’s – the Mali-born sustainable solutions pioneer joint scheme, the Floating Music Hub.