The African Development Bank (AfDB) said on Wednesday that a study focused on infrastructure development in Africa would get under way in September.

The Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida) will be jointly commissioned by the AfDB, the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).

Speaking on the sidelines of the Infrastructure Project Finance Conference in Johannesburg, the head of Nepad infrastructure project preparation facility for the AfDB, Mike Salawou, said that the objective of the study was to enable African decision makers to establish a strategic framework for the development of regional and continental infrastructure.

Pida would focus on infrastructure development in four separate sectors, namely transport, energy, information and communication technology, as well as transboundary water.

The study would only cover the regional and continental dimensions of the four sectors. The national dimensions of whatever character, including physical infrastructures, national policies, institutional and regulatory frameworks, technical norms and standards, would be considered only in so far as they have an impact on the regional and continental dimensions.

The outputs of the study would include the strategic objectives and sector policies in each of the infrastructure sectors and the prioritised programmes over the short, medium and long term that would support Africa’s development vision and its integration into the global economy, said Salawou.

He noted that Pida was a comprehensive framework that covered the entire African continent, and called for integration in the development of infrastructure. “Right now, every country is doing its own thing, and we would like to incorporate the framework in all the countries, throughout all the regions. This is our master plan for developing infrastructure in Africa.”

Salawou noted that Pida would likely be completed within a year and a half, or two years.

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