While contributions to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (Nepad’s) Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (IPPF) Special Fund reached some $90.5-million during the first half of this year, donor contributors have urged other countries to contribute to the fund to support infrastructure project preparation in Africa.
The call from contributing donor partners Canada, Germany, the UK, Spain, Denmark and Norway for increased financial contributions in Africa is in an effort to accelerate Africa’s transformation and increase socioeconomic development through enhanced infrastructure connectivity.
The donors believe that Africa’s regional integration efforts are being undermined by inadequate infrastructure owing to a lack of bankable infrastructure projects in energy, transport, information and communication technology and water and sanitation, which could attract financing for implementation.
“The early indications on the implementation of projects clearly show the critical importance of a sound project preparation, given that more than half of the portfolio of projects are still at the conceptual stage. Resource mobilisation is key to properly prepare projects,” the donors said.
Much of the $90.5-million in contributions has already been committed to the preparation of regional infrastructure projects across Africa.
“More funds are required given the increasing demands being made on the fund by African countries, regional economic communities and power pools, among others, who are the main beneficiaries,” said Special Funds Oversight Committee chairperson and Global Affairs Canada senior development officer Fiore Pace.
He was speaking on behalf of the other country donors at the Oversight Committee meeting of the Special Fund last week at the African Development Bank’s (AfDB’s) headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, which reviewed the operations of the Nepad-IPPF Special Fund for the first six months of this year.
At the core of the funding is the delivery of all-inclusive and sustainable infrastructure through well-packaged, bankable projects attractive to investors, said AfDB VP for private sector, infrastructure and industrialisation Pierre Guislain, adding that this required enhancing the capacities and resources of existing facilities such as Nepad-IPPF, improved coordination by all players and increased partnerships and cofinancing.