ICA 2007 Annual Report is Published

18 September 2008

The 2007 Annual Report of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa is now available.

The Annual Report can be downloaded in English (PDF, 789KB).
The Annual Report Overview can be downloaded in English (PDF, 436KB)

Key messages include:

 1. Progress has been made on bridging the financing gap

• Commitments by ICA members reached $12.4 billion in 2007, an increase of 61% from the previous year ($7.5 billion).

• African countries received a minimum of $40 billion in external financial support to infrastructure 2007 (with around 50% coming from the private sector)

• Chinese commitments are estimated to be a minimum of $5.2 billion in 2007

2. Africa’s power crisis continues to demand urgent attention

• Investment needs are estimated to be around $25 billion per year to meet basic generation needs

• Improving the performance of utilities would free up money for new investment and to upgrade existing infrastructure

• Regional solutions are important to reducing capital, maintenance and operating costs

3. Action is required now to prevent what might become ‘Africa’s water crisis’

• Negative effects of climate change are already being experienced in Africa. More water storage facilities need to be built to help smooth out seasonal variations of water supply.

• Regional cooperation between countries needs to improve through increased support to River Basin Organisations (RBOs)

4. Greater emphasis on regional solutions is needed

• African Governments need to speed up decision making and Ministries of Finance need to allocate more resources to preparing and financing regional infrastructure projects

• Around one quarter of ICA commitments now goes to regional infrastructure - up from around 5% in 2005.

• A lack of projects prepared to a stage where they are ready for financing continues to be a significant bottleneck

5. The returns to reform and increasing the efficiency of existing infrastructure are high

• Effective institutions and reform are as important as new infrastructure to ensuring better maintenance and attracting more private sector finance

• Innovative financing structures in some sector, such as duel tariff arrangements involving long-term public subsidies, will need to become a common feature if increased private sector finance is to become a reality.

6. Significant additional spending will be required on urban infrastructure

• Urban infrastructure in many of Africa’s cities is already under strain and the rate of urbanisation is set to increase

• Governments must ensure that they put in place modern legislative and planning frameworks

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