Infrastructure development is the linchpin to boosting the levels of intra-African trade in sub-Sahara Africa from the current 15% of total trade in the region. The achievement of this goal is in line with the focus of the NEPAD Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa Capacity Building Project (PIDA-CAP) funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB). This is why the SADC Secretariat with the support of the NEPAD Agency is working closely with key partners to enhance the capacity of the SADC Secretariat in order to fast-track the implementation of the PIDA priority infrastructure projects in the SADC Region, which are also part of the SADC Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP).
As part of the SADC Industrialisation Week, the SADC Secretariat, NEPAD Agency and the NBF hosted a consultative event on regional infrastructure projects on Tuesday, 23 August 2016 in Swaziland. The event was themed ‘Private sector Consultation/Pre-Market – Sounding Workshop’, and was developed as a follow-up to the ‘SADC-PIDA Acceleration Programme: Ministers’ Meeting for Beira and North-South Development Corridors’ which was hosted earlier this year in Victoria Falls, in Zimbabwe.
The focus of the session was to build on the lessons learnt from the Central Corridor acceleration experience and to scope and identify project opportunities for private sector participation. During the meeting, the SADC Secretariat and the NEPAD Agency provided background to the process executed by the Victoria Falls task force, and Ministerial meetings to arrive at a preliminary shortlist of 38 projects and went on to clarify the process followed by IOS consultants to filter the preliminary shortlist and arrive at the 10 proposed phase 1 projects that have high implementation readiness.
For more information on the next steps and future planned working group meeting kindly contact Peter Varndell, Programme Manager of the NBF’s Africa Infrastructure Desk (Afri-ID) on his direct line: +27 10 596 1909 or email: peter.varndell@thenbf.co.za.