• Director for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission
• Representatives of RECs
• Representative of African development Bank
• Representatives of Specialised Institutions
• Dear Colleagues
• Dear Partners
• Distinguished participants, Ladies and gentlemen

On behalf of the AUDA-NEPAD CEO, Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, I express our appreciation for being here today at this important Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Transcontinental & Interregional Infrastructure, Energy and Tourism meeting, to deliver opening remarks and to participate in its deliberations..

Foremost, distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the Government of Egypt for the warm welcome to this beautiful city of Cairo.
As you are aware, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) is a continental initiative that provides a common framework that aims at addressing the infrastructure deficit that severely hampers Africa’s competitiveness in the world market.

Since the adoption of the PIDA by the AU Summit in January 2012, many activities have been undertaken that evidently show that the continent is making progress in the implementation of key continental programmers. A few examples to note on some of the processes and instruments and ongoing support that AUDA NEPAD, AUC together with our partners have facilitated to accelerate PIDA are:

The Continental Business Network (CBN): In 2016 we established the Continental Business Network (CBN) as a platform for high-level engagement with the private sector to facilitate investment in transboundary infrastructure projects. The work of the CBN is to continuously deliberate on how Africa can finance its infrastructure and how Africa’s infrastructure can be de-risked to attract investments from the private sector as well as to explore innovative measures and instruments to close the US$108 billion infrastructure gap on the continent. Following the launch of the 5% Agenda in 2017, this year the Continental Business Network (CBN) once again gathered international investors, pension funds, stock exchange CEO’s, multi-lateral development banks and G20 representatives at the New York Stock Exchange, to follow up on the Agenda and consider how to structure an Africa Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism (AIGM) that would attract participation from institutional and long-term investors. The CBN also gathered last month African Pension Funds so as to deliberate on the implementation of the 5% Agenda. An agenda aimed at increase the low base of investments in infrastructure of AUM from 1.5% to 5% within the next 5 years.

The PIDA Service Delivery Mechanism (SDM): Overall, SDM activities range from the upstream to mid-stage of projects preparation. This includes mainly creating the enabling environment (legislation, regulatory, capacity building, consensus among stakeholders, etc.) and project conceptualization and definition (project partners mapping, set up and management of advisory team, kick off PPP process, risk allocation, etc.)

The needs, the demands, in terms of project preparation in Africa are far beyond the current capacity of PIDA SDM and NEPAD IPPF. Consequently, the crucial element for the future of both IPPF and SDM is about the funding and the sustainability of their financing process. To sustain the important activities of the two instruments, it appears necessary that both AfDB and NEPAD Agency design a joint resources mobilization approach. A recoverable and grants and mobilization resources from African countries are key proposals to be considered towards the sustainable funding of regional projects preparation. Private sector also would have to play a significant role in funding the preparatory works, prerequisite to the project structuring and financial close.

To institutionalize and expedite the cooperation between the PIDA SDM and IPPF, a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been drafted and submitted to the AfDB for consideration.

Project Data Collection continues to play a significant role in PIDA acceleration: With the support of the PIDA Capacity building Project from the AfDB, concerted efforts has been put into collecting data for PIDA projects through seminars in the RECs (UMA, SADC, COMESA, EAC). This has led to the significant improvement of data in the VPIC and AID platforms within the past months some 85 projects have up-to-date information.

Similarly, the PIDA Job Creation Toolkit has become a crucial instrument for policy makers to estimate the jobs that PIDA will generate: Every year around 15 million people of working age enter the labour market in Africa and it is therefore important that we consider how large-scale infrastructure and PIDA in particular, can contribute to absorbing some of this latent labour force. With the support of the German Government through GIZ, the NEPAD Agency has over the last 2 years been working on the PIDA Job Creation Toolkit which includes a methodology to quantify the job creation impacts of infrastructure projects and guidelines on how to mainstream labour market effects into PIDA project planning and implementation. The Toolkit allows users to explore ways in which to maximize job creation from infrastructure projects and thus capitalize on Africa’s demographic dividend and opportunities for wider regional economic development. For example AUDA –NEPAD has advised the Batoka Gorge Hydropower Dam and Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Corridor (LAPSSET) on job estimation and job maximization in order to ensure maximum economic and social impact from these projects..

Excellences, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, despite the modest successes noted in the implementation of PIDA, as with any framework or strategy, it is important to take stock of the progress of the implementation of the first phase of the PIDA PAP 2012-2020. In order to do this the AUC and the AUDA-sNEPAD have commissioned a Mid Term Review. To date the process has been consultative in order to ensure that it draws from the lessons learned from the implementation of the first phase.

The next phase of PIDA PAP should be crafted in a way that anticipates the needs of the RECs, Members States and project owners taking into account the reality of the changes in the continent.

These include changes to our continental frameworks and including our institutional reforms. For example when PIDA was crafted in 2012, Agenda 2063 and the STC-TTIET were not in place. Also the SDGs were not in place and hence specifically SDG 6 (water & sanitation), 7 (Access to reliable energy) and 9 (Industry and infrastructure) and with other related SDGs that have a direct bearing on our theme “Smart Infrastructure to boost continental transformation and integration”

Excellences, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

From the preliminary consultations and feedback, some pertinent issues arising for review consideration or inclusion in the next phase of PIDA PAP are;
• Reviewing the project selection criteria and prioritization of continental projects so that they attract project financing
• Reconfiguring of PIDA governance structures for alignment, coherent and efficient functioning
• Integrating a ‘corridor development approach’ to take advantage of synergies between the large trans-boundary projects in PIDA.
• Capacity development for key areas such as project preparation and PPP.
• Inclusion of women, youth and communities in the infrastructure value chains.

AUDA-NEPAD and AUC have in this regard started engaging with its partners to ensure support the next phase of PIDA will be sustainable and fit for purpose.

Lastly, as we take stock of the progress, we have to equally reflect on the theme of our (STC) meeting. Therefore, as we enter into the fourth industrial revolution, we have to ensure that our policies and guiding frameworks for development of infrastructure and regional integration too evolve and adopt to the fourth industrial revolution to ensure that the continent earns its rightful place. In this regard we have to develop the complementary skills that will drive smart infrastructure that Africa urgently requires.

I thank you all, and wish us all successful deliberation and good meeting outcomes.