Understanding NOVASCEND question by question.

NOVASCEND is an initiative that explores, with African regions and communities, another way of organising collective life. It links urban development, local economic activity, essential services and residents’ participation.

The name refers at once to the overall vision, the urban model that gives it form, the digital platform proposed to connect services, the proposed cities and the NOVASCEND 2030 horizon.

In practical terms, it means imagining cities and neighbourhoods where housing, energy, water, services, economic activity and collective decisions are designed together, in the service of residents. The places and services described on this site are proposed: none is presented as already deployed.

To avoid misunderstandings, here is what NOVASCEND does not claim to be:

• A purely technical project. Digital tools, the platform and artificial intelligence are only means in the service of the four pillars of the vision. Collective life is not run from a platform: a tool is adopted only if it answers a real problem, remains accessible to all and can be governed responsibly. Read the vision.
• An investment offer. No offer is open and no return is promised (see “Can I invest in NOVASCEND?”).
• A programme already delivered. The images are generated, the residents of New lives are fictional and the services described are proposed. The social, economic and ecological benefits will have to be established by data and evaluations, not presumed.
• A city closed in on itself. This is not about self-sufficiency: the cities remain open to exchange and operate within national legal frameworks.
• A system that scores or coerces people. No one should be scored for their activities or lose their rights for failing to contribute according to an imposed norm. Community contribution must neither be a condition for fundamental rights nor replace properly paid employment.
• A project endorsed by the institutions cited. The organisations whose figures are quoted, the reference authors, the United Nations 2030 Agenda and UNESCO are cited as points of reference: this implies neither support, nor approval, nor partnership.

WAGAS Group is the group and the legal entity: it leads the initiative, publishes this site and carries out the projects with its partners. NOVASCEND is the initiative itself: the vision, the platform, the cities, the model and the 2030 horizon.

The WAGAS Group website presents the group, its businesses and its partners.

The site does not yet say so, and it is better to be clear. Two things are presented side by side:

• The projects and figures of WAGAS Group: housing, energy, agro-industry and smart cities announced by the group in four countries.
• The NOVASCEND model: a vision and a research architecture (local economy, platform, resident participation, community fund), described as hypothetical.

Which mechanisms of the model are or will be applied to each announced project remains to be documented, with the local area, the partners, the timetable, the status and the evidence. See what remains to be documented.

Several transformations are happening at once. Africa’s population is expected to grow from around 1.50 to 2.45 billion between 2024 and 2050, and its urban population could double to 1.4 billion (AUC / OECD projections for the total population, OECD and partners for the urban population). Artificial intelligence is transforming work, and climate change requires building differently.

The buildings, networks and services built in the coming decades will shape several generations. NOVASCEND starts from this observation to propose answers designed from African realities, rather than models imported as they are. Read the context.

WAGAS Group presents projects in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Conakry and Chad: housing and urban services, agro-industry, renewable energy, smart cities and deep tech. The group also announces partnerships in fifteen other African countries through FAGACE.

The precise sites, scopes and timetables have not all been published yet. See the locations.

No. The scenes illustrating the site are generated images, labelled as “imagined” or “concept” visuals in their captions. They show what could exist, not what has already been built. Likewise, the six residents of New lives are fictional characters.

It rests on four pillars:

• An economy that benefits the local area: processing resources locally, financing essential services and sharing the benefits where they exist.
• Freedom of activity: widening everyone’s choices, whether that means holding a decent job, starting a business, learning, passing on knowledge or caring for others.
• Residents who decide: giving them a real place in setting priorities, tracking results and controlling decisions.
• Voices that carry their own narrative: enabling Africans to document and tell their own stories.

NOVASCEND research calls this orientation “distributed prosperity”: growth only makes sense if it improves daily life and strengthens residents’ autonomy. Explore the vision.

No. The idea is that living with dignity should depend less on income from work, and that everyone should be able to choose their activities, change course, train or rest. Activity includes salaried employment and entrepreneurship, but also care, passing on knowledge, research, culture and civic engagement.

Paid jobs keep their place: wages, security, trade union rights and social protection must be protected. Voluntary activity does not replace a job that should be paid, and no one should be scored for their activities or lose their rights for failing to contribute according to an imposed norm. Read more about this pillar.

It is the name given to the economy of the first pillar. It draws on the model presented by WAGAS Group, which links resources, industry, energy, the city and services: producing locally rather than exporting raw resources, supplying businesses and homes with reliable energy, and financing health, education and mobility through the activity created.

This is not self-sufficiency in isolation: the cities remain open to trade and operate within national legal frameworks. Read more about this pillar.

Nothing is promised. The research envisages a Community Prosperity Fund, separate from WAGAS and subject to independent controls, which would hold certain rights over productive assets and finance collective benefits.

A community dividend remains a hypothesis, variable and conditional: it could only be calculated after operating costs, maintenance, taxes, debt and reserves. Essential services and existing rights must not depend on a promise of future returns. See the conditions for implementation.

No. The NOVASCEND research paper, in its version 2 of October 2026, describes an architecture that is still hypothetical. Rights, accounts and effects must be specified country by country, with the residents and institutions concerned, then verified before being presented as established.

The monitoring tools explored by the research, such as the “G equation” or the Utopia Index, are not established impact results and would not be used to score people. See the conditions for implementation.

Connecting a city means linking residents, neighbourhoods, services and institutions, not just installing sensors. The envisaged organisation is a local network spread across the neighbourhoods rather than a single centre: places and mediators, in each neighbourhood, to learn, make proposals and access services.

Digital tools support this organisation without replacing it. Discover the urban model.

They are the concrete services that accompany residents’ journeys: looking for housing, consulting a doctor remotely, enrolling in training, monitoring water quality, proposing a project for one’s neighbourhood…

The target catalogue brings together 1,355 entries, including 923 services for the public and partners, organised into eight families, from “Living and settling” to “Financing, connecting and verifying”. The site’s map places 24 of them in a fictional city. This catalogue describes a target: it measures neither deployment nor actual use. See the eight families.

No. This is a design principle: no one should be excluded by the equipment they own. The envisaged journeys should also work by SMS, USSD or voice message on a basic phone, and with in-person assistance from officers and facilitators. The smartphone may be an additional channel, never a condition of access. Read the principle.

The model provides for spaces where residents, local authorities and economic actors can debate priorities, compare projects, their costs and their alternatives, then follow up on the commitments made. Projects, their costs and their alternatives should be accessible before decisions are taken, with forms of participation open beyond digital channels.

These mechanisms do not replace democratic institutions. Simulations can inform a choice, but the decision remains human, debated and open to challenge. Read more about this pillar.

That is not the stated intention. The proposed cities operate within national legal frameworks and the projects are built with local and national authorities. Participation mechanisms do not replace democratic institutions.

Several safeguards are proposed, but remain to be defined and verified country by country: specifying who owns the assets, who decides and what appeals exist; separating the operator, the community fund, the public authorities and the audit; guaranteeing the freedom to leave the city, to choose other providers and to transfer one’s data. See the implementation conditions.

In the proposed platform, personal data should be minimised and protected. Residents should be able to access services without depending on a single application, challenge a decision, choose other providers and transfer their data. A public register of sensors and CCTV devices is among the services under study.

These rules remain to be defined with the stakeholders concerned. For this site itself, see the legal notice and privacy.

Each service follows a cycle: plan, build, verify, operate, improve. Operations teams and dedicated facilities (urban operations centre, electrical substation, drinking-water treatment plant, wastewater treatment plant, sorting centre) ensure continuity.

The site illustrates this with the example of a water outage, from the report to the account given to residents. The corresponding procedures are still drafts.

Because no single source meets every need. Solar and wind vary by time of day and season; hydropower, biomass and geothermal can be dispatched or stored. NOVASCEND envisages a system in which these sources complement one another and are managed together, for residents, industry, agriculture and essential services.

Energy is considered from the design stage of cities, villages, industries and mobility, not added afterwards. Each local area would build its own combination according to its resources, its needs and its collective choices. These orientations are not commitments. Read the Sustainable mixed energy page.

• Solar: rooftops, public facilities, industrial surfaces and power plants, taking land and grid capacity into account.
• Wind: as a complement, where local conditions allow.
• Hydropower: where relevant, while preserving ecosystems and water uses.
• Biomass and biogas: from certain organic residues, without competing with food, degrading soils or encouraging deforestation.
• Geothermal and local resources: depending on geological, technical and economic conditions.

Dispatchable or back-up capacity may remain necessary during the transition. The precise choice is a matter for each project, after a site study: available resource, existing grid, storage and back-up. See the complementary sources.

A sustainable energy system must meet demand at the right time, withstand disruptions and maintain essential services. NOVASCEND envisages interconnected grids, neighbourhood microgrids, storage and digital management tools, organised around five functions: produce, store, distribute, anticipate, protect.

Artificial intelligence can help optimise flows, but it replaces neither physical protections, nor safety automation, nor the responsibility of operators. Back-up supply, degraded modes and the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure are part of the design. The electrical substation is one of the five operating facilities of the urban model. Read about the grid design.

Energy links housing, industry, agriculture, mobility and resources. Electricity generation can supply a factory, which makes materials for buildings; an activity can provide recoverable heat or residues that can be recovered; irrigation, refrigeration and food processing depend on reliable electricity.

These synergies require technical design, investment, operating rules and environmental assessment. They extend the first pillar of the vision: what is produced locally can create value for the local area. Read more about this pillar.

It is an avenue being explored, not a promise. NOVASCEND is studying arrangements that bring together, under the applicable laws, private operators, public authorities, cooperatives and community participation vehicles. The value created could support collective facilities, training, regulated shareholdings or affordable access to energy.

No distribution of income is guaranteed. Maintenance, debt, taxes and reserves must be covered before any distribution of a possible surplus, within a transparent legal framework. The same rules apply to the community dividend mentioned in the vision. See the conditions for implementation.

No. A renewable installation uses materials, land, water and capital; operating it requires skills, maintenance and end-of-life management. Sustainability cannot be decreed, it has to be demonstrated: each system should be assessed over its life cycle (emissions, biodiversity, social conditions, availability of resources, repairability, recycling).

Residents should know the impacts, the alternatives and the operators’ commitments. Land rights, existing uses and ecosystems must be taken into account before any installation.

The autonomy sought does not mean isolation. A Smart Industrial City could become a hub for production, processing, storage and consumption; Smart Industrial Villages would deploy solutions suited to rural and agricultural activities and public services. Interconnections between regions pool capacity and improve security of supply, where technical and regulatory conditions allow.

The NOVASCEND platform could provide a consolidated view of production, storage and aggregated consumption, from the building to exchanges between regions, while respecting cybersecurity, the minimisation of personal data and human control. These functions have not been built.

The group announces more than 600 MW of renewable capacity in its pipeline, biomass units in Guinea-Conakry, a city powered by a renewable energy mix in Chad and renewable energy hubs in Côte d’Ivoire. It also announces a reduction of 1.2 million tonnes of CO₂ per year linked to biomass systems.

These figures are reported as published; they are not independently verified here. Still to be documented, project by project: capacity, investment decisions, timetable and the capacity actually commissioned. See the current state of play.

A city is not financed in a single block. The model studied by WAGAS combines several instruments according to the nature of the assets (housing, productive facilities, networks, digital services):

• A dedicated vehicle for each project, funded through a mix of equity and debt, with guarantees under consideration with the African Guarantee and Economic Cooperation Fund (FAGACE), a partner of WAGAS.
• Green bonds, reserved for assets whose environmental benefit can be measured: clean energy, water, waste, green buildings, clean transport.

As of 27 October 2026, the financial model is being designed and no green bond has been issued.

For green bonds, the envisaged process follows the ICMA Green Bond Principles: a public reference framework, an independent opinion before issuance, allocation of funds only to assets recorded in a verified register, tracking separate from other resources, annual verification by a third party and public reporting.

The NOVASCEND platform is intended to extend this tracking, asset by asset: one identifier per financed facility, eligible expenditure tagged and reconciled with the funds raised, indicators fed by operating data (energy produced, water treated, waste recovered). The operator runs the assets but does not alter any published parameter; an independent auditor verifies. These functions are designed, not yet built. Read about the planned role of the platform.

Financing infrastructure in emerging markets involves real risks, including that of losing all or part of one’s capital. The main ones are non-repayment, currency risk (revenue in local currency), liquidity (difficulty selling before maturity), execution (delays, cost overruns, under-performing operations), political and regulatory risk, and greenwashing.

Some have a planned response: a dedicated vehicle for each project, guarantees under consideration with FAGACE whose scope remains to be specified, segregation and tagging of funds, annual external verification. The others will be addressed in the documentation of each transaction. The worst possible case is more severe than any illustrative scenario. See the risk table.

Each project should make public and verifiable documentation in two parts. Project and execution: location, land, permits and confirmed partners; programme, timetable, milestones and risks; responsible team and governance; budget, operating costs and assumptions; for energy, the site studies (resource, grid, storage, back-up).

Financial terms and impact: legal structure and stakeholders’ rights; financial terms, liquidity and risks; licensed institutions responsible for issuance, custody, payment and listing; protections for residents and workers; indicators, measurement method and reporting. See the expected documentation.

Not today. No offer is open, and no participation is open to retail investors. The instruments under study are aimed first at institutional investors: development banks, funds, insurers, guarantee institutions.

Forms suited to retail investors could be studied later, only within a framework authorised by the relevant financial authorities. This site presents no subscription terms, no promise of returns and no financial advice.

Do not pay anything. WAGAS is not currently requesting any payment from members of the public, whether by telephone, email or social media. Any such request in the name of WAGAS or NOVASCEND is fraudulent.

Report it to the financial authority of your country; in France, the AMF publishes blacklists and warnings.

The NOVASCEND Portal is the space for professionals: it lets you create an account and prepare a housing project or the financing of your own business. It does not allow you to invest in NOVASCEND.

The NOVASCEND Agriculture platform, for its part, is aimed at producers, buyers and agricultural authorities.

WAGAS Group publishes ambitions and aggregate indicators: a programme of 1.5 million homes in Cameroon (and, elsewhere, 80,000 homes “under way”), more than 600 MW of renewable capacity in its development portfolio, 250,000 projected jobs. The stated target is NOVASCEND 2030.

Not all of these figures have a deadline, a calculation method or a dated status. The Deployment page sets them against what remains to be documented for each project. See the current state of play.

This is one of the requirements of the approach: distinguishing what is announced, approved, under way, delivered and evaluated, with the source and the date. Each project should be tracked with the same information (location and partners, timetable and resources, status and evidence, results and limits), updated as decisions are taken.

The indicators themselves remain to be defined with local actors; they would be published with their method, their results and their limits. Read the monitoring principles.

Companies, experts, institutions and organisations wishing to contribute, for example in construction, energy, water, digital technology or impact assessment, can do so through the WAGAS Group website. Local authorities and public administrations are the first concerned: projects are built with local and national authorities.

Write to contact@wagas-group.com. The data you send is used only to reply to you; details are given in the legal notice and privacy.