Towards an improvement in African infrastructures

4 August 2010

A workshop to revive a study devoted to the African Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) met in Dakar last week.

The project, organised by the World Bank, presents an update on the state of the infrastructures of the continent, their strengths and their weaknesses.

It will facilitate the establishment of new construction programmes and sees itself as "a basis of reference against which future improvements to infrastructure can be measured".

The AICD studied 24 countries, representing 85 percent of the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa and concentrating the major part of its population. All sectors, from transport to energy, from water to new technologies, were taken into account.

According to the study, infrastructures accelerate the growth of African countries, and this is despite their being delayed, mainly because of funding problems.

Because of the geography of the continent, the construction of road networks may cost twice as much as in the rest of the world.

Category: General