Decision on Socio-Economic Transformation and Infrastructure Development in Africa: Energy, Railways, Roads and ICT Sectors – Doc. assembly/AU/17(XV) Add.4

DECISION ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: ENERGY, RAILWAYS,
ROADS AND ICT SECTORS - Doc. Assembly/AU/17(XV) Add.4

The Assembly,

1. TAKES NOTE of the paper proposed by the Republic of Uganda titled “Socio- Economic Transformation and Infrastructure Development in Africa: Energy (Electricity), Railways, Roads and ICT Sectors”; and EXPRESSES APPRECIATION to H.E. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for the proposal;

2. RECALLS its previous decisions on infrastructure development in Africa, particularly its “Declaration on development of Transport and Energy Infrastructure in Africa” adopted by the 12^th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union on 3 February 2009 in Addis Ababa and “Declaration on ICT in Africa (challenges and prospects)” adopted by the 14^th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union on 2 February 2010 in Addis Ababa;

3. FURTHER RECALLS the ongoing programmes in the energy and transport sectors, especially: The Programme on Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), jointly initiated by the AUC, AfDB and NEPAD; and the Trans-African Highway (TAH) programme, launched with the objective of linking africa’s capitals and other commercially important centres of production and consumption;

4. RECOGNIZES that effective implementation of the above Declarations, Programmes and other related initiatives will require policy re-orientations and innovative funding mechanisms;

5. FURTHER RECOGNIZES that, in the energy sector, Africa will have to diversify its energy sources to meet the ever increasing gaps in energy production and consumption; and COGNIZANT of the fact the development and peaceful use of nuclear energy will be essential in the long run;

6. ENDORSES the recommendations in the above mentioned paper and, more in particular, agrees on the following measures:

1. FINANCING

1. Prioritize and ring fence infrastructure funding in national budgets for infrastructure development to enable long term planning and development of projects;

2. Utilize and promote Public Private partnerships to implement infrastructure projects. This may entail respective Member States to have PPP policy and legal and institutional framework;

3. Generate funding using infrastructure bonds, and other available modalities, at national, regional and international markets for specific infrastructure projects;

4. Encourage public companies to float shares to generate revenue from the public which can be used for infrastructure development;

5. Harmonize the financing and execution of cross-border project.

2. ENERGY

1. Make electricity infrastructure development a key priority sector in the national development plans;

2. Realizing that conventional energy sources are not sufficient to meet the growing demand, consider developing our capacity to generate power from non-traditional sources such as renewable and nuclear energy in the long run. This will entail putting in place a sound framework for the purpose;

3. Seek support from multilateral and bilateral development partners to make it a priority to support energy development in Africa in order to meet the MDGs and subsequently reduce dependency on them in the long run.

3. TRANSPORT

1. Include in the national priorities the various regional and continental

interconnection infrastructure network projects and programmes;

2. Harmonize regulations, standards and executions to promote country-to-region interconnection and efficient operation of networks and market development;

3. Create appropriate institutional frameworks for development of the major integration projects and carry out the necessary reforms to ensure better operation and maintenance of the projects;

4. Contribute financially to the NEPAD infrastructure projects preparation facility;

5. Reduce the cost of construction and maintenance of railway infrastructure by using cheap labour provided by National Armies;

4. ICT

1. Strategic investment in broadband and its integration in national and regional development strategies;

2. Establish and operationalise ICT Incubation centres and ICT Parks to harness the economic benefits of increased band width;

3. Adopt e-government models that have been demonstrated to work elsewhere (Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, etc);

4. Develop regularly frameworks that promote competition and eliminate entry barriers in order to increase competition, reduce prices, and drive growth.

7. REQUESTS the Commission of the African Union to integrate the above measures within the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA).