Fostering Trade in Africa by Gbadebo O. A. Odularu & Mena Hassan & Musibau Adetunji Babatunde

Author:Gbadebo O. A. Odularu & Mena Hassan & Musibau Adetunji Babatunde
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030366322
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Identification and Analysis of the Responses (Strategy, Policies, etc.) to the Infrastructural Challenges by African Countries (Regional Level, Selected National Country Level)

In response to the infrastructure deficit and poor connectivity challenges, African countries have taken a number of concrete actions and made some progress toward the implementation of transport-related commitments and goals. Some of the initiatives that were developed in the early period include the United Nations Transport and Communications Decade in Africa (UNTACDA-I), which was launched in 1978. The second decade program, UNTACDA-II was launched in 1991 with the long-term objective of establishing an efficient and integrated transport and communications system as the basis for the physical integration of Africa. The UNTACDA-II incorporated four special initiatives: human resources and institutional development, the Yamoussoukro Declaration on a New African Air Transport Policy, the regional transport database and the Trans-African Highway Bureau. The level of resources mobilized for the projects was $9.0 billion, compared to the financing requirement of $16.6 billion, indicating 54% achievement for the program. The implementation of UNTACDA-II led to the expansion of the transport network in Africa, improvement of quality of infrastructure and services and strengthening of institutional capacity.

Also, to address this need for infrastructure, the African Union Commission (AUC), in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) secretariat formulated the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) in July 2010 and approved in January 2012. The purpose of PIDA is to provide strategic long-term planning for infrastructure development in a coherent way for all African stakeholders and address the many issues facing the transport sector along the African Regional Transport Infrastructures (ARTIN).

The overall objectives of PIDA are not only to recommend the building or modernization of regional transport infrastructures to increase capacity and satisfy the expected transport demand but also to establish regional transport systems, through policy reforms, that will not only encourage and facilitate regional trade and the movement of goods and passengers along the key corridors but also to speed up the economic development of both landlocked and transit countries and contribute to poverty reduction. The key output of PIDA is what is called the Priority Action Plan (PAP), a list of 51 immediately actionable projects across four key infrastructure sectors for implementation between 2012 and 2020. PIDA identifies the activities (both soft and hard) to be conducted by tranches of ten years (2010–2020; 2020–2030 and 2030–2040). Presently, the AUC, the NPCA, the RECs and the countries are implementing the PIDA-PAP, which cover the period 2010–2020. The transport section of the PIDA-PAP contains 24 programs. Majority of these programs are aimed at increasing (or building) transport infrastructure capacities to satisfy the expected traffic demand, in 2020 and to increase transport efficiency along the key corridors. Each program of the PIDA-PAP recommends to start with the conduct of studies and analysis to define the best technical and economical solutions to fill the identified gaps and to improve the overall efficiency of regional transport and then identifies and costs the required investments.

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