Aims and objectives
Advocacy
To reflect the scale of the problem, a key role is to ensure a more urgent, larger and more effective response to Africa’s infrastructure needs, including urging greater attention in country PRSs and other national development strategies.
Data
Current baseline data on funding and activity levels is poor and there is an urgent need to establish who is doing what, where, with what money, so as to identify gaps, building on work already underway in NEPAD and the World Bank.
Effectiveness
Poor coordination amongst donors remains a problem. Consortium members would press for action at the country-level and continue to advocate for full implementation of the Rome declaration, whilst encouraging partner countries to speed up their project ratification procedures.
Capacity building
Capacity should be increased in areas responsible for current bottlenecks, particularly project preparation, where a plethora of facilities exist. Rationalisation of these facilities, and expansion if necessary, could also help increase effectiveness.
Comparative advantage
To respect the comparative advantages and complementarity of different donors, and the appropriate type and mix of funding for different types of infrastructure is key, if more resources are to be mobilised and effectively used.
Scaling up
Responding to the need for increased activity by mobilising additional funds for infrastructure (noting that some donors have already made new commitments and that recent multilateral replenishments will provide some additional resources) and more effective use of existing sources of finance for feasible projects; and identifying funds in the near term for a number of priority projects.
Monitoring
There is a need for monitoring of actions and outcomes, although detailed approaches still need to be defined.