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African countries must learn infrastructure lessons from each other

City Insight partner Sue Bannister and KPMG government advisory services associate director Andile Skosana discusses the massive urban shift that is at play in Africa. Recording date: 24/05/2013. Camera work: Nicholas Boyd. Editing: Shane Wiliams.

23rd May 2013

By: Idéle Esterhuizen

  

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Although Africa has learned many lessons from the UK and the US regarding infrastructure development, it was important for countries on the continent to learn from each other, as they shared many of the same challenges, City Insight partner Sue Bannister said on Thursday.

Speaking at KPMG’s ninth Africa Conversation, which focused on prioritising Africa’s megacities, she stated that the lack of infrastructure and support was posing a challenge to urbanisation on the continent, while the lack of capacity among staff and management to implement plans was also adding to the challenge.

“We need to focus on skills development,” she emphasised.

KPMG global infrastructure and projects group head DeBuys Scott urged that a proper dialogue regarding infrastructure development was required.

“We need to start mixing with those we can learn from…A number of business associations have been touching on this, but we need more dialogue,” he said.

Research suggests that a major 'urban drift' is at play in Africa, where cities had an important role to play in further economic development. Projections are that, by 2030, Africa would have 760-million urban residents. By 2050, this figure was expected to rise to 1.2-billion.

A city is classified as a megacity if it houses more than ten-million people.

Scott added that more than a thousand new cities were anticipated to be built in Africa by 2050, which highlighted the urgency of developing Africa’s megacities.

He further indicated that, although Africa had more infrastructure plans than ever, including South Africa’s National Development Plan, with each plan worth between $65-billion and $90-billion, this was only the starting point.

“This is a good start. From here, countries need to go on to a master plan and then prioritise. Otherwise, Africa will not change”

KPMG government advisory services associate director Andile Skosana said the continent’s growing cities were becoming more complex to manage and that, although inroads had been made, its systems were not advanced enough to accommodate this yet.

“I am an African optimist. Urbanisation is creating the opportunity to do different things. We can develop systems that work better than elsewhere, but it is a moving target [influx of people into cities] and it is difficult to keep up [with],” he said.

Skosana added that data was the biggest challenge for institutions, as there were too few people to convert the data into something tangible.

Further, he said the financing of infrastructure development in Africa by taxpayers alone was not sustainable, which highlighted the importance of public–private partnerships (PPPs).

“Government needs to invite more parties. African consumers are not wealthy enough to pay for infrastructure development yet,” Skosana noted.

Scott added that securing funding for projects in Africa was somewhat constrained by the fact that the continent’s perceived profile was negative, wih investors considering it a high risk.

He pointed out that PPPs offered various benefits, including decreasing risk profiles and having well thought-through principles that could also be applied to other projects.

Meanwhile, Bannister said that, instead of starting greenfield projects, cities could follow the cheaper route of improving their existing infrastructure.

“Focusing on brownfield projects is a good opportunity to densify and improve our neighbourhoods. We need a ‘bang for buck’ approach. If we densify our cities and use our resources more efficiently, we can reduce our carbon footprint,” Skosana said.

He added that the influx of people into Africa’s cities could not be stopped, with Bannister urging that this flow would have to be made more systematic.

“Unless we create jobs in rural areas, people will come to cities, but we cannot remove the focus from the cities,” she said.

Looking at the decade ahead, Skosana said African countries would and were already realising that they must “take the bull by the horns” and tackle their infrastructure problems.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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