Africa urged to attract private sector

African countries have been urged to do more to attract private sector in infrastructure development, ensuring rapid regional development to facilitate the movement of goods, people, services, ideas and innovations.

Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Carlos Lopes, made the strong push for infrastructure development in Africa at the opening of a high level round table on infrastructure and development, held in the context of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee on Thursday in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

While lauding the progress made over the last two years, Lopes said challenges remain in attracting significant private sector involvement, which currently only stands at 8 billion U.S. dollars per year.

The private sector's reluctance, he said, is "partly due to fears about the expropriation of assets, the enforceability of contracts and other regulatory risks that arise as a result of incongruous frameworks across countries and sub-regions."

To meet the annual infrastructure gap of 48 billion dollars per year, countries need to put in place appropriate policy, legal and regulatory frameworks, he said.

Lopes told the high-level forum that ECA, in partnership with the African union   (AU) and the NEPAD Agency, will be working on a common regional framework to facilitate private sector financing of infrastructure projects in Africa.

The project will entail mapping of policies, laws and regulations that affect private sector interests and a process of harmonization to address long-standing issues.

These include project preparation and development, divergent laws, local content, among others.

He made the call against the backdrop of a geographically fragmented continent that reduces the possibility of creating growth by exploiting the economies of scale. Furthermore, 40 percent of its population lives in landlocked countries and most are isolated and operate inefficient markets.

"Regional integration holds the key to addressing these inefficiencies and boosting intra-African trade," he said.

The High-Level Round Table on Structural Economic Transformation and Regional Integration in Africa took place in the margins of the 24th AU Summit.

The NEPAD Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee has the development of Africa's infrastructure as a key area of focus, and is credited with championing the implementation of regional priority infrastructure projects.

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