Summit conference to co-ordinate highway infrastructure funds

9 October 2009

From 12 to 15 October 2009 Cameroon will be hosting the eighth meeting of the continent’s Highway Funds Association.

The main topic this year is the “Management of Highway Maintenance Funds in the Face of the Challenges of Decentralisation and Regional Integration in Africa”.

In the course of the conference, the executives responsible for 27 highway maintenance funds in sub-saharan Africa will attempt to co-ordinate their actions in such a way that the financing allocated is used in the most effective manner possible.

The role of infrastructures in bringing about regional integration will likewise be debated, as was the case at the seventh summit between the United State and the African states on 30 September, which brought together a number of African leaders in Washington.

The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagamé, emphasised at that time the important role which infrastructures play in regional integration and in the promotion of economic development.

“You cannot envisage growth in the volume of commerce if there are no roads or railways, and if air transport is problematic”, he declared.<br/>