Investment in transport infrastructure sector in Africa is set for solid growth mainly driven by surge in funding for road, bridges and railway projects, thus increasing from the present $47.1 billion to $69 billion by 2020, said a report by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
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The railway project spending will be led by Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt where transport investment will increase from $7.6 billion, $9.5 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively, to $9.8 billion, $8.5 billion and $7.5 billion next year, stated GlobalData in its latest report, ‘African Transport Networks.’
When completed in their entirety, the tracked projects will total over 110,000 km in length (54,110 km for roads, 55,345 km for railway and 599 km for bridges) of which 75,297 km will be newly constructed, 29,197 km will be upgraded and 5,561 km will have an element of both construction and upgrade, crisscrossing the African continent, stated GlobalData, which is currently tracking 448 large-scale transport projects across Africa worth $430.3 billion in both the public and private sectors at all stages from announcement to execution.
Yasmine Ghozzi, an economist at GlobalData, said: "Africa’s lack of infrastructure is a serious obstacle to growth and development, resulting in a low level of intra-African trade and trade with other regions. The continent accounts for 12% of the world population, but generates a mere 1% of global GDP and only 2% of world trade."
“Over the longer term, Africa has huge potential for growth. There is a clear appetite in the region to improve and expand trade, and a realization that to do so requires industrial integration and infrastructure development,” noted Ghozzi.
Investment rates in transport infrastructure have been increasing, thanks to major continental initiatives such as the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) – a strategic continental initiative for mobilizing resources across African countries to transform Africa through modern infrastructure.
In East Africa, the Northern and Central transport corridors serve nine countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sudan and Djibouti.
Around 34% of the Northern Corridor’s network of roads can be considered to be in good condition.
The Northern Corridor needs $1.87billion in financing to make it fully functional, while the Central Corridor needs an investment of $1.67billion to revamp the infrastructure and make it fully functional.
In Western Africa, the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor is an essential link in the Dakar-Lagos Corridor, which is part of the trans-African highway of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region, whose development is one of the 16 priority continental infrastructure projects identified on the continent’s scale.
According to Ghozzi, the March 2018 agreement to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area has potential to be a turning point in the continent’s ambition to boost intra-African trade and spur economic development.
"With this emphasis on regional integration, the focus is on the development of regional economic corridors, particularly important for landlocked countries, interlinking highways, railways and ports in the region, hence providing connectivity between rural, national and international networks," she added.
