Driving infrastructure development in Africa

Driving infrastructure development is at the heart of the Nepad Business Foundation’s Africa Infrastructure Desk (Afri- ID) which has identified five projects across the continent on which to focus. According to the organisation’s Kudzanayi Bangure, the argument for the role of integrated infrastructure in unlocking intra-Africa trade has been made time and time again. “Ensuring we drive that infrastructure development is critical and therefore the aim of Afri-ID is to address one of the continent’s most persistent problems and make infrastructure projects bankable.” The five projects currently on the agenda, said Bangure, are the establishment of a regional rolling stock leasing pool, the rehabilitation of seven berths at the port in Dar es Salaam, the Mtwara port and EDZ development, increasing cargo to rail on the Zambian-South Africa corridor and increasing cargo to rail on the Tanzanian- South Africa corridor. Bangure said these were identified from an in initial 665 projects.