‘Africa’s infrastructure needs require $93bn a year’

In order to build the infrastructure
necessary to support growth and
meet stated development goals,
Africa will have to spend about $93
billion a year for a decade.
Two-thirds of that sum would be
for investments and the remaining
third for maintenance.
According to the Africa
Infrastructure Country Diagnostic
(AICD), a knowledge programme
on Africa’s infrastructure that grew
out of a pledge by the G8 Summit
of 2005, Africa spends only about
$45 billion a year on infrastructure,
two-thirds of which is domestically
financed from taxes and user
charges.
“Africa trails other regions
in infrastructure, and that lag
suppresses growth and productivity.
If sub-Saharan Africa could achieve
the infrastructure development of
Mauritius, annual GDP growth in
the region would rise by more than
two percentage points.”