By Jimoh Babatunde with agency reports

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has called for stronger emphasis on infrastructure by African leaders saying that the big challenge is that Africa invests only four percent of its collective GDP in infrastructure, compared with China’s 14 percent.

Speaking on behalf of the Bank Group during the 9th African Development Forum
(ADF) in Marrakech, Operations Vice- President in charge of Agriculture, Human Development and Governance, Aly Abou- Sabaa, said many countries in the region are hungry for infrastructure investments, and now is the best time for African governments and their development partners to focus on fast-tracking resources.

Abou-Sabaa said infrastructure is vital for transformation, but added that “other sectors are central, including agriculture, good governance, health, education systems.

“Africa’s transformation cannot occur with weak governance, health or education systems or within a context of prevailing food insecurity,” he said. He also addressed various unforeseeable crises prevailing in the region, including HIV-AIDS, malaria and Ebola.

The Vice-President explained that in spite of agriculture contributing up to 25 percent of Africa’s GDP and employing about 60 percent of the population, the continent still imports $25 billion worth of food every year.

“The Bank is promoting participation of anchor investors in private sector investment in agriculture,” the Vice-President stated.

Abou-Sabaa expounded on the Bank’s estimates, observing that “the annual financing need for African infrastructure is about $95 billion, of which only $45 billion is currently invested each year, from African governments, development finance institutions and the private sector.”

Building on these facts and figures, Abou-Sabaa argued that Africa’s transformation largely depends on how well countries mobilize inputs from a range of stakeholders, promote infrastructure through new vehicles such as the Africa50 Fund, invest in their human capital, and foster good governance to enable a business-conducive environment.

He also said the Bank has created Africa50 Fund, headquartered in Casablanca, as the new game-changing solution to stimulate and drive the African infrastructure market.

The Africa50 Fund, “seeks to reconcile governments’ strategic objectives of meeting the substantial investment needs in infrastructure and the attractiveness of African assets to the growing sources of domestic and international capital,” Abou- Sabaa said.

More importantly, the long-term strategic aim of Africa50 is to invest directly $10 billion in projects, and facilitate total project investments of $100 billion by crowding in private-sector players and enticing investors.

The Bank Group in recent years has put much emphasis on the key role played by the private sector in implementing infrastructure projects, especially in the power and transport sectors, for the development and transformation in Africa.

www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/africa-transformation-depends-infrastructure-afdb/