Africa’s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation

Africa’s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation

The French Development Agency (AFD) and the World Bank have recently released a paper, entitled A Time for Transformation, which collects detailed economic and technical data on the infrastructure sectors in Africa. The paper is part of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to increase the world’s knowledge of infrastructure in Africa, and which should also provide a more solid empirical foundation for prioritising investments and designing policy reforms in the infrastructure sectors.

Already, the project has produced a series of original reports on public expenditure, spending needs, and sector performance in each of the main infrastructure sectors. The new paper synthesises the most significant findings of those reports. The first phase of the AICD focused on 24 countries that together account for 85 percent of the gross domestic product, population and infrastructure aid flows of Sub-Saharan Africa. Coverage is now being expanded in a second phase to include as many other African countries as possible.

Based on extensive fieldwork across Africa, the following main findings have emerged:

• Infrastructure has been responsible for more than half of Africa’s recent improved growth performance and has the potential to contribute even more in the future.
• Africa’s infrastructure networks increasingly lag behind those of other developing countries and are characterised by missing regional links and stagnant household access.
• Africa’s difficult economic geography presents a particular challenge for the region’s infrastructure development.
• Africa’s infrastructure services are twice as expensive as elsewhere, reflecting both diseconomies of scale in production and high profit margins caused by lack of competition.
• The cost of addressing Africa’s infrastructure needs is around USD 93 billion a year, about one-third of which is for maintenance— more than twice the Commission for Africa’s (2005) estimate.

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