Construction of the East Africa Standard Gauge Railway. Similar projects will be financed if the NASDAQ formula works. Photo by CR.
September 18th in New York, officials from NEPAD, CEOs and African leaders met at NASDAQ headquarters to launch a campaign that could see Africa finance its stalling bankable projects.
In January 2012, the African Union Summit adopted a programme for five cross-border infrastructure projects.
According to the programme, 51 cross-border infrastructure programmes and 400 actionable projects in four sectors will be financed.
The East Africa where Rwanda belongs has a number of projects that fall in that catefory.
The most known among the many are; Standard Gauge Railway which is under construction, Power Generation, Transmission and Inter connectivity to mention but a few.
According to the World Bank, the continent needs to spend $93 billion annually (44% for energy; 23% for water and sanitation; 20% for transport; 10% for Information Communication Technology; and 3% for irrigation untill 2020 to bridge its infrastructure gap, which is currently removing an estimated 2% of Growth Domestic Product annual growth.
According to available figures, Africa has managed to close 158 project finance deals with debt totalling to $59billion over the decade 2004-2013, which represents only 5 percent of infrastructure investment needs and 12 percent of the actual financial flows.
The 5% Agenda campaign highlights that only a collaborative public-private approach can efficiently tackle these issues and calls for allocations of institutional investors to African infrastructure to be increased to the declared 5% mark.
Rwanda is a strong member of NEPAD since its inception in 2001.
Speaking at the launch of the event today, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, NEPAD Chief Executive Officer said that Infrastructure plays a leading role in supporting growth on the continent. He added that at the same time, it can represent an innovative and attractive asset class for institutional investors with long-term liabilities.”
Mayaki says that by launching the 5% campaign, “We invite investors to take advantage of the wide-ranging opportunities Africa has to offer and to move forward with what can only be a win-win partnership”.
The launch featured Nigerian billionaire and entrepreneur Tony O. Elumelu, who said: “Africa is getting stronger every day with new business opportunities and innovative ideas but what is still crucially missing is projects.
