Minister Trevor Manuel
Esteemed delegates and experts
Let me welcome all of you to this important meeting of experts and thank you for taking the time to join us. Your attendance indicates that we all share the commitment to infrastructure development as a catalyst for the socio-economic development of our continent.
For almost two centuries, during both colonial and post-colonial periods, Africa’s development has been dominated by extractive industries specialising in taking our minerals and commodities to foreign markets.
We cannot change the past, but we must shape our future and construct a new economic paradigm. We must use our comparative advantages – our people and our natural resources – to construct an economic landscape that is better for our people and our children.
It is up to us to construct this new paradigm as no one is going to do it for us.
Fundamentally, Africans must define for themselves what relationship they seek to for themselves with the rest of the world. Development in Africa is dependent on a few critical policies.
In the main these are the following among others:
- to develop our human resources, invest in education, training, research and development as well as to improve the health status of our people
- to draw millions of people into work that gives them dignity, incomes and livelihoods
- to develop our infrastructure so that it supports economic and human development
- to foster regional integration, regional trade and closer cooperation and
- to build sound governance, stable governments, capable administrations and development-oriented public services.
This is the agenda on which the African Union was formed and it is the agenda that we continue to champion. This is the agenda for which each individual country, our regional economic communities, various structures of the AU and NEPAD are mobilising for.
It is the agenda that has brought all of us here today. We must in this seminar address two aspects of this agenda. We must look more broadly at regional integration and more specifically at infrastructure development in Africa.
These are clearly related issues.
Infrastructure is critical to regional economic integration. Infrastructure means the arteries along which people, goods, services and ideas flow amongst our countries.
Through these arteries we must fix anomalies in our economic development. A critical task in doing that is to raise our level of intra-African trade substantially.
In Africa, only seven per cent of our trade is with other countries on the Continent. On the other hand, in Asia, almost 60 percent of an individual country’s trade is with their regional neighbours.
It is important for us to improve these linkages because greater regional integration will help to lower our transport costs, grow our markets, allow for more diversification and encourage beneficiation.
To achieve greater integration, we need roads, rail lines, power plants, telecom lines, satellites, cables, ports, water ways and water treatment plants.
But we must remember that infrastructure is much more than this. It is about the people who operate the infrastructure. It is about the signalling systems that run the trains. It is about systems to maintain the infrastructure.
It is about the functioning of border posts, combating corruption in trade as well as opening up new areas and new industries within our continent to development. And so while infrastructure investment is critical, focusing on these softer issues is equally critical.
If we do not fix these softer issues, then building infrastructure is of little use. There are also a host of bureaucratic blockages to intra-African trade. These range from tariff and non-tariff barriers, inefficient border posts, confusing and tedious licensing systems and multiple and overlapping legal frameworks.
These issues must also be tackled, not with the view of undermining sovereignty, but of recognising that trade allows for a win-win solution. We should also bear in mind that infrastructure development is a growth industry. Infrastructure investment in Africa has grown significantly in the past decade, from about ten billion US dollars in 2001 to about forty five billion US dollars by 2008.
Despite the global recession, infrastructure investment continued to grow in 2009 and 2010. The World Bank estimates that we need to grow infrastructure investment to about ninety three billion US dollars a year to eradicate the backlog and unlock our economic potential.
Again, that is the reason we are here today - to discuss how exactly African governments can do this. You will recall that the AU Summit in Sirte in July last year adopted the AU/NEPAD Africa Action Plan for 2010 to 2015.
The summit also endorsed the flagship programmes and projects outlined in the plan as a means of advancing regional and continental integration.
At the July 2008 AU Summit, the African Heads of State and government emphasised that the Africa Action Plan must remain the basis for Africa’s engagement with all Africa’s international cooperating partners.
At the Summit of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee held in Kampala on 24 July 2010, I raised concern that, while the Africa Action Plan is presented as the basis for Africa’s engagement with Africa’s international development partners, the programme is not prioritised in Africa itself.
I wish to reiterate that the primary responsibility for implementing the Africa Action Plan lies with national governments, specifically in terms of sponsoring and promoting cross-border infrastructure projects.
Without sponsorship by national governments, the secretariats of the regional economic communities will not be able to make progress. Political leadership and championing of cross-border infrastructure projects remains a prerequisite for success.
In order to give effect to the above, I offered, at the Summit, on behalf of South Africa, to be a co-champion of the African continent’s North-South Corridor, Road and Rail, which serves as a link between SADC, COMESA and the East African Community.
This corridor is aimed at trade facilitation and physical interconnectivity.
This involves the development of transport and energy infrastructure and economic activity projects in mining, agriculture and tourism.
This will support the infrastructure on a sustainable basis for the benefit of the countries involved and the three geographic regions.
The NEPAD Heads of States Implementation Committee at the AU Summit agreed to the establishment of a High-Level Sub-Committee on Infrastructure comprising Algeria, Benin, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa.
The mandate of the sub-committee is to:
- evaluate existing AU and NEPAD infrastructure initiatives, particularly the Africa Action Plan and the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa
- prioritise and consolidate the priority infrastructure programmes and projects for high impact and results and
- develop draft modalities and procedures regarding the championing of these projects by specific Heads of State.
Additionally, the Summit requested the High-Level Sub-Committee to report to the next meeting of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Committee at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa.
This meeting of experts is therefore a critical preparatory meeting leading eventually to the end of January summit.
Our fundamental premise is that as member states, it is our responsibility to enhance the role of NEPAD to act as a key driver in the process of accelerated regional infrastructure development.
Our key objectives include developing criteria for infrastructure prioritisation and the actual prioritisation of projects, linkages with the private sector, building links between African regional economic communities and leveraging resources from international partners.
As experts you must help us develop modalities and procedures regarding the championing of these projects by specific African Heads of State.
Central to our efforts should be the realisation that we are finally providing an operating base for the infrastructure development in Africa.
The time has come for concrete action; we have done enough planning in the continent. I am confident that this team of experts is equal to the task.
I am very happy that this meeting is taking place and am very optimistic about the outcome.
In that way, we can make 2011 a year of action with regards to NEPAD infrastructure development.
I thank you.
Source: The Presidency
