President Kaberuka |
OPINION PIECE
The
new world order comes to Durban this week – for the fifth BRICS Summit,
and the first in Africa. Dilma Rousseff, Vladimir Putin, Manmohan
Singh, Xi Jinping and Jacob Zuma represent a changing world, as gravity
and power gradually shift from North to South, and West to East. Between
them, they preside over nearly half of the world’s population, and
nearly a quarter of its GDP.
The
relationship between Africa and the BRICS has grown dramatically, with
trade levels increasing ten-fold in ten years, to a value of some US
$340 billion a year. And Africa itself is the lynchpin of the trade
triangle with Asia and South America. Africa-China trade last year was
20 times what it had been at the turn of the century.
All
five of these huge countries and economies had to begin at the
beginning, by addressing the infrastructure gap: ensuring the road,
rail, ports and energy to power and empower their societies.
The
BRICS also bring to the table the experience and the expertise of their
development trajectories. They bring knowledge and investment in
entering the global supply and value chains – from agribusiness, to IT,
to South African companies at work north of the Limpopo.
The
BRICS countries are already part of the African infrastructure
solution. We see this in everything from Brazilian road and rail
investment through Vale in Mozambique, to Indian telecommunications
investment through Bharti Airtel in Chad, to Chinese investment through
its Railway Engineering Cooperation Group and Sinohydro in road, rail
and health infrastructure in the DRC. We could say the same many times
over, with different examples in different countries.
The
time has come for an idea which was first floated two years ago, and
which can take the relationship to the next level: channeling the
significant surplus into high return infrastructure projects – a win-win
proposition. The priority projects are already identified in the
Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) (http://bit.ly/zBD2bt),
and many of them are now at bankable level. In this period of low
interest globally, there are investments which are attractive.
Sixty
percent of the African Development Bank’s annual loans and grants of US
$5 billion are for infrastructure. With a leveraging power of one to
six, we are able to mobilize additional resources. But the funding gap
for African infrastructure is large, and this is still a drop in the
ocean. We know the priorities spelt out in the PIDA, and in the private
sector-led Infrastructure Consortium for Africa, which the Bank also
manages.
And
Africa itself is mobilizing internal resources. In 2013, the Bank plans
to launch an African Infrastructure Facility that will combine
sovereign and non-sovereign resources – both domestic and international –
to invest in carrying Africa over the threshold of its infrastructural
and developmental doorway.
Source: African Development Bank, written by Donald Kaberuka, President
0 comments :
Post a Comment