Change of pace! The great Beck Trek through France, a bit of Belgium and the Netherlands is well and truly done, dusted and documented on the blockchain (for the full list of posts on that epic journey, check out the end of the last post I wrote about it), so now it's time to get back to the business of cracking the African infrastructure nut.

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First, a bit of background

Because this is complicated...and simple at the same time. It's complicated because there is a multiplicity of players involved and the processes for identifying, developing and financing infrastructure projects are complex, probably overly complex for what is really needed. This could be considered a hangover from the days when aid was "input" driven rather than "outcomes" or "results" driven. It can be difficult for a business looking to invest in Africa to understand the landscape, which can appear opaque and therefore intimidating to the uninitiated.

Some key players and initiatives

The African Union (AU) is the overarching body which provides political mandate to entities involved in African development. It works through the African Union Commission (AUC). NEPAD is an AU initiative. The NEPAD Secretariat, along with the AUC and the African Development Bank (AfDB), are leading the Programme for Infrastructure Development for Africa (PIDA).

What's NEPAD?

That's an acronym for the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Okay, it's not so new any more - it was President Thabo Mbeki's brainchild with President Wade of Senegal back in...2001, I think. Before that it a rather unapproachable name like the Millennium Partnership for Africa's Recovery (MARP). In development, if your acronym isn't strong...no, I'm being unfair. It was considered new, because it was premised on resetting the relationships between Africa and her development partners from a donor/recipient paradigm to a more balanced one, arguably setting the scene for landmark agreements such as the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, which enshrined the concept of countries owning their own development.

NEPAD has come a long way from its early days at the turn of the millennium and is now one of the most visible initiatives of the AU. The NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, based in Midrand, South Africa (basically just off the highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria), capitalises on the presence of the Development Bank of Southern Africa as well as a number of private sector financial insitutions, and has a small team of in-house professionals and specialists.

Agenda 2063

In one of my much earlier posts on strategic thinking, I emphasised the importance of a strategy being rooted in knowing where we are going. I'll add to that it's important to know why we are going there - purpose is critical to mission. Agenda 2063 is a "strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years [it was launched in 2013]. Its (sic) builds on, and seeks to accelerate the implementation of past and existing continental initiatives for growth and sustainable development."

Driven by strategic thinking, the AU has developed Agenda 2063 through consultation at national and sub-national levels across the African continent, building on other initiatives and National and Regional development plans.

What’s PIDA?

PIDA is a continent-wide programme with an emphasis on regional integration to catalyse and spur socio-economic development. Its Priority Action Plan (PAP, I kid you not) to 2020 comprised projects selected ostensibly on the basis of their ability to contribute to an overall GDP growth target of 6%. These projects were selected in part based on their ability to contribute to intra-African trade, which is a whole topic in itself – but compared to trade with partners beyond the continent, African countries still struggle to exchange goods and services with each other. In reality, the original PIDA PAP project list had a lot of political favourites on it which Heads of state were reluctant to give up, but the team which drew up the

There are plenty of other players

Mostly in the public sector - multilateral financial institutions, bilateral development agencies, donors, non-governmental organisations, Regional Economic Communities...anything you can shake an acronym at.

There is a growing voice in the private sector to be part of Africa's sustainable development through investment, and that's what I'd like to talk more about this week. Today's post is just a scene-setter for some of the exciting work that's going on in the background.

Where infrastructure fits in to Africa's development

There is nothing like the proverbial "plan in a page", and the AfDB's 2016 Annual Report summarises the context of African infrastructure development particularly well - kudos to their graphics team for communicating the complexity of the plan for Africa's transformation on a single page, and bigger kudos to their leadership team for coming up with the High 5 initiative.

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As you can see, the AfDB is taking into account the Sustainable Development Goals, the AU Agenda 2063 and their own 10-year action plan, already underway when the new AfDB president took on the job.

As part of its infrastructure development responsibilities in Africa, the AfDB is the Executing Agency for PIDA, with responsibility for “contractual, financial, technical and administrative management of the programme including responsibility for procurement procedures, in conformity with its existing regulations, budget management and disbursements”.

PIDA isn't the only infrastructure initiative the Bank is involved in. When we get to the Bank's 10-year strategy, we'll unpack the extent of infrastructure initiatives being funded at that level (if you're wondering where to find Infrastructure, look at the top line in the green circle at the centre of the 10-year plan down on the bottom right of the figure).

Where to from here?

This week I'll be unpacking some of the critical elements on that graphic in a broader examination of where the private sector can/does/should fit into African infrastructure development, and how we might be able to assist the African public sector and their development partners to achieve better results.

I hope this will lead us into some interesting discussions on where advances in technology and finance, especially cryptocurrency solutions and convergence with technology (yes, I do mean the Internet of Things among others) could take Africa's infrastructure development.

Why leapfrog, when we can transform instead?