Africa needs $360bn basic infrastructure investment over 25 years

Infrastructure deficit is costing the Africa about 2% gross domestic product (GDP) growth a year, as well as limiting intra-African trade

By AGENCIES

AFRICA required an estimated $360-billion to implement basic regional backbone infrastructure across the continent by 2040, said African Development Bank (AfDB) manager of regional integration and trade Ralph Olaye on Tuesday.

The implementation of sufficient African infrastructure, which was previously stated to be the least developed in the world, would increase the continent’s lagging competiveness in the global economy and lower the cost of doing business.

Speaking at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) inaugural Infrastructure Africa conference, in Sandton, he said that the current infrastructure deficit was costing the continent about 2% gross domestic product (GDP) growth a year, as well as limiting intra-African trade, which currently stood at 12%.

The 2012 to 2040 Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida), a multibillion-dollar initiative led by the AfDB, the African Union and Nepad, aimed to develop a web of 37 200 km of highways, 30 200 km of railways and 16 500 km of interconnected power lines.

It also planned to add 20 101 hm3 to Africa’s current water storage capacity, 54 150 MW of hydroelectric power generation capacity and an extra 1.3-billion tons capacity at the ports.

This excluded the multibillion-dollar investments required to develop the national infrastructure linked to the basic regional backbone, to ensure full infrastructure coverage throughout Africa.

The investment would be funded through, besides others, domestic revenues or tax and revenues under an affordable user pays model.