Infrastructure-deficit costs African US$43m
Africa spends US$43million in addressing infrastructural-deficit, and there is opportunity to rake in a further US$17million if efficiency is improved, a World Bank report has revealed.
Professor Edward Badu, Provost of the College of Architecture and Planning, KNUST, addressing participants at the first international summit on Infrastructure, observed that despite these considerable investments Africa’s infrastructure has rather dwindled -- and in many instances become unproductive.
He acknowledged that modern and reliable infrastructure is essential to the development of any nation, and that infrastructure-deficit hinders global industrial, social and political progress. While infrastructure-deficit is a global issue, its impact is felt most in developing countries, particularly Africa.
The entire African continent is at the forefront of infrastructural development needs and confronted with large investment deficits. This is manifested in congested roads; poorly maintained recreational facilities; deteriorated schools, hospitals, water supply systems and other infrastructure assets.
Prof. Badu observed that the well-articulated Millennium development Goals (MDGs) are far from being met because of severe structural and management weaknesses in designing and delivering infrastructure projects.
He highlighted however that the scale of this problem has also not received much attention from academicians across the African continent; it is therefore against this backdrop that researchers have been assembled to listen and deliberate on emerging issues in research for the infrastructure domain.
The Conference proceedings contained over 50 peer-review papers on topics relating to: infrastructure design; planning and management; infrastructure investment and financing infrastructure development and economic growth; and infrastructure governance and politics.
The 3-day Conference had international papers coming from the UK, US, Nigeria, Germany, the Republic of South Africa, Zambia among others; with about five high profile keynote speakers in the persons of Professor George Ofori, National University of Singapore, and Professor Akintola Akintoye, University of Central Lancashire, UK.
The others included Professor David Proverbs, University of West England, Bristol, UK; Professor David J. Edwards, Birmingham City University, UK; and Professor Kwame Addo, Ministry of Transport, Ghana.
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This article was originally posted on Sustainable Development Africa Platform
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