Infrastructure investment: A path to Africa’s economic independence

The health of every nation’s economy and its potential to grow strongly depend on a reliable infrastructure system because infrastructures are the bedrock, life blood and the engines that drive the economy. The role play by infrastructures in the economy of a nation cannot be overemphasized especially its effect on sustainable development, foreign direct investment flow, GDP growth, inflation reduction, job creation, trade, agriculture, delivery of goods and services, lowering cost of business, improving health and standard of living and poverty reduction. Therefore, efficient and effective provision of infrastructure in a nation underlines all attempts to reduce poverty.

Lack of or inadequate infrastructures tend to slow down the growth potentials of the economy and weaken the sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture and service which heavily depend on it. Without infrastructures such as ports and harbours, roads, rail lines for example it will be very difficult if not impossible to embark on any meaningful export driven policy.

You cannot supply the industries with doctors, architects, bankers, lawyers, planners, engineers, teachers, nurses and technicians if education infrastructures and the support system needed to deliver it do not exist. Goods cannot be moved from centres of production to centres of consumption if there are no roads, rail lines, ports and inland water infrastructures to deliver them. Food production, storage and distribution cannot be increased if irrigation facilities, canals, silos, tractors and other accoutrements are not put in place. Likewise, tourists will not be motivated to come to a country if airports, hotels, roads and other infrastructures that go with it are absent; and you cannot run an efficient and vibrant economy if there are inadequate supply of power and telecommunication infrastructures.

The difference between the major economic powers and the developing world can be measured on the scale and quality of their social and economic infrastructures. A visit to any of these developed economies reveals efficient and well developed networks of surface and underground rail lines, roads, tunnels, trams, power plants, airports, harbours, telecommunication, health, education, housing, shopping malls, canals, inland water system, irrigation facilities, sewerage and sanitation infrastructures which are constantly being maintained, upgraded and expanded.

On the other hand a careful look at the state of infrastructures in any single African country reveals serious discrepancies, deficiencies, decay and neglect. The poor state can be attributed to lack of concrete and coherence infrastructure development policies, lack of political commitment, poor and inefficient management and most importantly inadequate funding. Infrastructure development is often neglected because politicians and policymakers tend to focus on short term policies and programmes that win votes, but that also retard development and keep the people in perpetual poverty. Long term policies such as infrastructure buildings are shunned because it is seen as expensive and takes time for benefits to be realised. This explains why the railway, roads, ports, waste management and water treatment plants as well as other major infrastructures are either non-existent or are barely working.

South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia, DRC, Somalia and Kenya have been experiencing serious disruptions in the energy sector for years. The problem is that African governments and policymakers have focused too much attention on building dams while ignoring other potential energy sources such as solar and wind. It is believed that the solar energy potential of the Sahara Desert could power the whole of Africa and Europe. However this potential has been ignored in favour of environmentally unsound and economically unreliable projects such as hydro. The Finnish president on a visit to Nigeria in March 2009 asked: “Nigerian people have so much sun and wind, why don’t they use it for the generation of light for cooking and every other thing?” She queried, and added that “we do it in Finland for our renewable energy”. Source: www.dailytrust.com, 12 March, 2009.

The sad story is that Finland is locked up for most of the year by cold winter but take advantage of the short summer to convert the little sunshine they receive into solar energy, while African nations have sunshine most of the year but fail to take advantage of it. The change in world climatic system has led to dwindling rainfall which has worked to limit the ability of these dams to produce the needed energy to support the economy. As a result, investors are repelled and factories are folding up as the dams could hardly cope with the demand. Besides, power distribution infrastructures such as transformers and power lines are outdated. According to a recent World Bank report, the price of electricity is a leading factor in making Africa uncompetitive, relative to emerging economies like India, Brazil, Russia and China.

In Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Mali, Gabon, Congo, DRC, Central Africa Republic comfortable high speed train service is still a dream because the infrastructures that will make it a reality have not been built. In cases where rail tracks are available years of neglect and lack of investment has brought this vital transport sector to its knees. Whereas an express train in Japan takes about an hour to cover 280km, it takes an express train in Zambia 7 hours to cover the same distance.Most of the trains in use in Africa are locomotive, some of which are 50 years old, slow moving, worn out and run on single gauge tracks with a maximum speed of 70km/h. Despite evidence that rail network development is the quickest, efficient and cheapest way to move people and goods, the sector has received little attention in terms of investment and modernisation.

The roads in our cities are limited in capacity, poorly maintained and are choked with cars, trucks, buses. There are no provision for bicycles, pedestrians and people with disabilities. Daily traffic jams are common occurrence in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Accra, Lagos, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kampala, Free Town, Yaoundé and Monrovia. There are few parking lanes and ring roads to direct and distribute traffic away from the central business district do not exist. This makes cost of running business very expensive as passengers and goods spend hours in traffic especially during the rush hours. Besides, inter and intra city multilane freeways and expressways are still in its infancy in many countries and this has adversely affected travel, business and trade.

Lack and poor quality of port and harbour infrastructures have poorly positioned the continent to take full advantage of globalisation. Few ports and harbours are able to handle the big oil tankers, cargo and passenger planes that dominate global trade and air travel, making the continent one of the few places where cost of shipping and air travel are still provocatively high. The ports in Tema, Lagos, Durban, Richards Bay, Cape Town, Saldanha Bay, Port Elizabeth, and East London, Mombassa, Djibouti and Suez still struggle to berth some of the big ships due to unexpanded infrastructures, weak capacity and lack of appropriate technology.

About 60% of Africa’s total population live in rural areas. However, in these areas, infrastructures of every kind scarcely exist and those that exist barely function. There are few accessible roads in rural Africa and these few are poor, dirt and unpaved. As a result rickety buses, taxis and tractors dominate rural roads and accidents are high. Most rural communities become inaccessible during the rain season and harvested crops go wasted due to the poor nature of roads and bridges. It is estimated that close to 40% of food produced in some parts of rural Africa becomes rotten because drivers are unwilling to risk their vehicles. The absence of electricity, water, sanitation, irrigation facilities, silos and other storage infrastructures limit the ability of the people to create wealth and do away with poverty. Currently 250 million Africans, mostly in rural areas, are cut of from existing power infrastructure and most of them have to resort to the use of expensive and hazardous fuels such as charcoal, kerosene and firewood.

The telecommunication including ICT sector, is still struggling to catch up with the rest of the world. Fibre optic cables, which make it possible for internet users to have access to fast speed internet connectivity, are very limited in the continent. Internet connection is absent in the rural parts of the continent and connection is very slow in the cities where internet is available. Besides it is also very expensive. In many areas, there are no fixed telephone lines and mobile telephone infrastructures are still at the infancy stage. Absence of telecommunication infrastructures is part of the reason why cost of running businesses is expensive in the continent compared to other regions. Schools, hospitals, banking and security operations are handicapped by the absence of these vital infrastructures. Companies and industries that heavily rely on ICT for efficiency and higher productivity are prevented from doing so, due to the poor state or absence of the infrastructure.

An example of how bad the situation is was captured in South Africa, the continent’s economic power house. On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 “Unlimited IT”, a South African information technology company, proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country's leading internet service provider. Internet speed and connectivity in Africa’s largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, called Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card strapped to his leg. Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line. SAPA said, Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times” Source: Reuters Wednesday September 9, 2009.

The agricultural sector is no exception. Majority of farmers have no access to improved seeds, tractors, irrigation facilities, and silos and other storage facilities. Besides, access to credits which could enable the farmers to provide these facilities themselves do not exist. Farming in Africa is dominated by the use of cutlasses/machetes, hoes and other rudimentary equipments. Despite the presence of major rivers and lakes, lack of irrigation infrastructures such as canals, pumping and water distribution machines have deadly hampered food production. Farmers still rely on nature for rain in order to plant and farming is still at the subsistence level where the average farmer is only able to produce to feed himself with little or nothing to sell. During bumper harvest lack of processing and storage facilities result in some produce being destroyed by farmers for lack of market. Farmers are usually forced to sell their products cheaper than they would otherwise have should processing and storage plants were available. The result is that during lean season food shortage, high food prices, hunger and malnutrition become the order of the day and extreme poverty among farmers also becomes apparent. The riots and hunger which occurred in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Somalia in 2008 were a direct result of lack of infrastructures in the agriculture sector. Failure to invest in agriculture infrastructure is the main reason why African countries continue to rely on food import and handout from China, US, and India.

In most countries there are no proper housing infrastructures. Pipelines for water delivery are absent. Electricity and waste management infrastructures do not exist not even in the capital cities. A visit to any village or town gives the same picture of substandard housing. The Rural housing landscape is still dominated by mud and bamboo housing and raffia roofing and water, energy, waste management infrastructures do not exist at all. In the cities housing supply lag way behind demand. Few cities can boast of formal housing sector where transport, water, energy, waste and other infrastructures are available and in areas where the infrastructures are available they are often of poor quality, of low capacity Residents usually face constant barrage of water and energy disruptions with high utility bills as these sectors struggle to cope due to lack of infrastructure and technology. Lack of affordable housing coupled with dwindling housing stock have given way to slums, shanty towns like those in Soweto in Johannesburg-South Africa, Kibera in Nairobi-Kenya, Sodom and Gomorrah in Accra-Ghana, Manshiyet Nasser in Cairo-Egypt and Agege in Lagos-Nigeria among others. These informal settlements do not have access to running water, electricity, toilets, access roads, playgrounds, schools, clinics and car parks because the infrastructures are simply not there.

“In Ghana, for example; Sewerage is almost non-existent, with only a portion of Accra, Tema, Kumasi and few regional capitals enjoying piped sewerage services. There is no centralized wastewater treatment system in most of the cities and households and commercial premises generally have no onsite flush latrines. Within Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tema and most of the cities and towns the absence of waste infrastructures has led to a situation where solid waste sometimes remain uncollected for weeks, and is unhygienically burnt and disposed; indiscriminate dumping of waste is creating health problems.

There are few cities and towns with reliable piped water supply. Many residence of Accra do not have access to frequent supply of good drinking water and many households have to resort to extreme measures to be able to cope. In short, the infrastructures to deliver water to the people are either not existing or their capacities are too small to support the growing demand. Poor city planning and management practices; as well as, untamed urbanization and continued influx of people from the rural areas into the cities have complicated the matter. The water situation in the rural areas is even worse. In the three northern regions people have to walk several miles in order to get water. As a result, people are not able to live healthy lives due to poor water quality and dwindling accessibility”. Source: Lord Aikins Adusei in his article “Ghana must avoid the resource curse”, 5 February, 2010.

The same problems are found in Nigeria due to absence of infrastructure.

Nigerian cities are full of unmanaged waste; filth and diseases are rampant; as municipalities and health officials struggle to do their best with the near absence of infrastructures.

Even Abuja; the supposedly planned federal capital, has not escaped the problems, as the following statement shows: “From Lagos which is ranked as one of the fastest growing cities in the world and yet the dirtiest and least liveable to Abuja, our supposedly modern capital city … the story is the same. There is entropy of organized disorder, decay of infrastructure facilities …inefficient waste management system. [Abuja] was properly conceived to contrast with the crisis-ridden Lagos … Greed, corruption and avarice of highly placed government officials including politicians thwarted the Abuja plan… Consequently, unconformity and chaos reigned in Abuja”. Source: Onyanta Adama, from her book: ‘Governing from above: solid waste management in Nigeria’s new capital city of Abuja’, 2007 page 15.

The education sector which is the foundation of the continent’s development has its share of the infrastructure problems. The institutions lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, books, staff bungalows, classrooms, students’ accommodation and electricity. In most institutions it is still chalk, paper and blackboard and there are no internet connections. The infrastructure problem has affected the quality and delivery of education in the continent. Of about 9,760 Accredited Universities in the World that were ranked, only University of Cape Town and University of Witwatersrand managed to place 179 and 319 positions respectively in the top 500. (Source: topuniversities.com/2008).

Without the infrastructures, the institutions are unable to produce the high quality of architects, engineers, planners, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, nurses, technicians that Africa desperately need in this increasingly scientific and technological age. This explains why in most countries, major architectural and engineering works are undertaken by foreigners and foreign companies from USA, Japan, China and Europe. The Universities lack well trained lecturers and some of them are amateurs in the use of computers, internet, power point and pod casting all are powerful tools essential to delivering high quality education. In most universities, students and lecturers have very limited access to electricity. It limits their ability to conduct any meaningful academic work. Whereas students in advanced countries immediately get their hands on books as they are released those in Africa have to wait several years to get the same books. A student in Sweden for example, only needs his/her username and password to access tens of thousands of online references, e-books and e-journals from around the globe including articles and papers written by some of the world’s best minds. On the contrary, very few African universities can boast of a million volumes of books in their libraries. Even the few books that exist are so old that information contained in them are valueless. Students have to rely on lecture notes from lecturers. This explains why there are few breakthroughs in our universities. In Sweden for example, almost all academic activities are organised on the internet through what is called Mondo: a project that allows students to do their assignments and submit them online and also interact with lecturers outside the classroom without having to meet face to face. The project is successful because internet infrastructures are available everywhere.

In Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Chad all major oil producing and exporting countries, it is regrettable to note that lack of infrastructure has hampered expansion in this huge revenue generation sector, leading to shortages of petroleum products, higher prices and queue forming. In these oil exporting countries pipe lines that transport oil to ports for shipment and depots for internal distribution are so old that leakages and accidents are frequent. Due to lack of infrastructures and absence of petrochemical industries, the oil producing nations have to import most of their petroleum products from abroad.

It is obvious that lack of infrastructures are the cause of the poor economic performance and poverty seen everywhere in Africa. There is no doubt that without heavy investment in infrastructures; it will be very difficult for Africa to make any progress towards economic independence. If Africa wants to join the Asia Tigers and free them from economic dependency then they must begin to invest heavily in the infrastructures that will create necessary environment for businesses to grow, serve as magnet to attract investments, and make their economies competitive. Increasing access to water, sanitation, roads, electricity, railways, trams, inland water transport system, airports, harbours, telecommunication, canals, and providing tractors, improved seeds, credits, subsidies and irrigation infrastructures are essential to Africa’s economic and social development. The long term survival of its people; for without the infrastructures, will be impossible to promote economic growth, reduce poverty and improve both urban and rural lives.

It is without, that infrastructure investment is very costly and governments alone cannot provide the needed funds to embark on the needed infrastructures. Therefore governments and policymakers in Africa must team up with private business which has both the money and the technology to build these infrastructures. The most single important ingredient for infrastructure building is commitment on the part of government. Once governments are committed to building the infrastructures they can then team up with individuals and businesses that have the resources to finance the projects. Hammarby Sjöstad is a district of Stockholm but used to be a run-down port housing some polluting industries. When Stockholm City authorities wanted to turn Hammarby Sjöstad into a modern and eco-friendly district, Stockholm City provided 500m euros to clean the heavily polluted environment, developed the area and converted it into a modern and eco-friendly district. To do this the City joined forces with 25 construction companies which then provided 80% of the 5bn euros that was needed for the development of the district. What made the project successful was the commitment on the part of the city authorities in developing the area.

Lack of infrastructures and inappropriate technologies will continue to impact negatively on the continent’s ability to manufacture goods and produce food for consumption and for export. Inadequate infrastructures will continue to limit the growth potential of export sector. Goods and service delivery within Africa will continue to be considerably low unless there is a drastic effort to build the new generation of infrastructures that will enable the continent to take advantage of the huge natural resources it is sitting on. The export sector will be dominated by the export of crude oil, raw cocoa beans, coffee, tobacco, and cotton, tea which also has the disadvantage of not bringing in enough revenue needed to eradicate poverty and other social and economic problems unless there is a serious political commitment to develop the infrastructures needed to transform the continent. Gold and diamond will continued to be exported to Switzerland, Belgium, Britain and Dubai for cutting and polishing before Africans go there to buy the wedding rings and bracelets to sell unless policymakers begin to look at infrastructure development with a positive attitude. The millions of jobs that gold and diamond cutting and polishing create will continue to be found in Israel, Belgium, Britain and US unless there is a comprehensive infrastructure development policy and implementation throughout the continent. The necessary infrastructures and technologies must be sought through partnership with private business if the continent stands any chance of redeeming itself from poverty and economic dependency.

If Africa is ever going to bridge the massive infrastructural gap, then there must be commitment on the part of governments, city authorities and policymakers to critically work with those with capital to move the continent forward.

Lord Aikins Adusei

Breaking the Poverty Cycle in Africa-the Case of Infrastructure Investment

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Infrastructure investment and democracy as a form of government in Africa is the only solution to Africa’s underdevelopment and impoverishment. The continent is lagging behind all the continents in the world in terms of economic and social development. All the countries making up the African continent have similar economic problems namely unemployment, higher deficits, poor state of economic and social infrastructures including roads, harbours, education, airports, telecommunication, health and sanitation.

Centuries of slavery and colonialism deprived the continent of her able human and economic resources. Where as the able men and women were carried away to work in the plantations of the Americas (in all about 30 – 40 million), the natural resources where looted by the European countries namely Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy. After slavery was abolished the looting of the natural resources continued. The irony is that virtually all the income from these resources was used to finance the economic and the infrastructural development of the European countries with little or nothing used to develop the various countries where these resources came from. A clear example is the case of Democratic Republic of Congo where King Leopold II of Belgium enslaved the Africans, forced them to work without pay, killed about 10 million and looted the country of her resources and virtually nothing was used to invest in the country except guns which the Belgium army used to kill the Africans. When the DRC was transferred from Leopold II to the Belgium state the looting and killing continued till DRC gained her independence in the 1960s. In fact DRC (Congo Free State) was the main supplier of rubber a vital raw material for the tyre industry and all the money from the sale of the rubber went to Belgium. King Leopold II was able to transform Belgium as one of the poorest countries in Europe into one of the wealthiest courtesy the enslavement and looting of Africans and their resources.

Belgium was not alone in what they did to the continent. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy all looted Africa of her gold, diamond, ivory, timber, cobalt, and all the minerals you can think of. The Africans who resisted the illegal activities were killed in their millions as happened in South West Africa (now Namibia) where the Germans in 1904 to 1907 committed the first genocide of the 20th Century by killing the Herero and the Namaqua people. While Europe became richer Africa became poorer and the trend continued till the 1950s when the African countries started to gain their ‘independence’beginning with Libya in 1951, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia all in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.

With little or no investment in the continent the various post colonial governments inherited countries with practically no infrastructure: roads, rails, harbours, telecommunications, education, health and sanitation and airports. The only areas which saw some few infrastructure investments during the colonial days were those where raw materials were heavily extracted. The attainment of independence did not come on silver Plata. Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Namibia and to some extent South Africa all attained their independence from their colonial masters through arm struggles and in most cases the few infrastructures that existed were destroyed due to the conflict.

As if slavery, colonialism and the looting of the continent’s resources were not enough the continent became a battle ground during the Cold War as the two super powers and their allies battled for influence and control on the continent mainly for her resources. As a result many African governments who were deem to be pro-Russia or America were overthrown using the military. A case in point was the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana on February 24th ,1966.Another example is the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba of Congo on January 17th 1961.Other leaders such as Nelson Mandela were imprisoned for either advocating for independence or improvement of conditions of Africans. CIA and the western intelligence community have been implicated for engineering the assassinations and overthrow of elected leaders of Africa. For example Larry Devlin, the CIA Station Chief in Congo during Patrice Lumumba’s days spoke to Washington Post in December 2008 saying he refused an order to assassinate Patrice Lumumba but his refusal did not stop the CIA and the Belgium government from overthrowing and assassinating him. The assassination attempt on Gamal Nasser of Egypt on 24th October 1954 and the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 were alleged to be the work of Britain M16 due to their refusal to hand over the administration of the Suez Canal the British. The CIA, KGB and their allies encouraged and financed wars and political instabilities throughout the continent. Angola became the battle ground for the CIA, KGB and the Chinese as each tried to gain control over the country, her people and resources. The civil war that engulfed the country in 1975 only ended in 1991 after 26 years of conflict. When the war ended the few infrastructures that remained after the war of independence (1961-1974) were gone.

The product of these assassinations and coups were the political instabilities and the wanting destruction of lives and property including infrastructures that have bedevilled Africa till today. As the elected leaders of the continent were assassinated, overthrown and subjected to all forms of cold war tactics including bribery, arm twisting and blackmail the continent degenerated and faulted on all aspects of human endeavour. The new crop of leaders who replaced the post colonial independence leaders and who were largely puppets of the European and American governments became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Joseph Mobutu Seseseku who became the choice of the Americans after they help to assassinate Lumumba ruled Congo for 32 years and in those years the country became poorer as Mobutu and his cronies got richer and the western countries notably USA and her allies had free hand looting the mineral resources most importantly cobalt a very important mineral needed for missile development. Little infrastructure activities was carried out by Mobutu. As a result Congo today can only be accessed by boats and canoes mainly through the River Congo.

As tyrants and dictators gained the support of western governments and did whatever they wanted with their economies without questions their people became poorer and hopelessness and desperation were the hallmarks of their lives. As the little money that came into government coffers were taken by corrupt government officials and civil servants there were almost no money to carry out infrastructural development and the poverty deepened. Poverty, desperation and hopelessness visited the people and coupled with their inability to change their leaders democratically, dissents were sowed among the population which serve as breeding grounds for more coups, civil wars and civil disturbances. This was evidence in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Algeria, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sierra Leone all experienced coups in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even in the early 1990s. These waves of coups were followed by civil wars that hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, CAR, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Niger and Guinea. These wars apart from it human cost also contributed to the destruction of roads, harbours, airports, rail lines, telecommunications, hospitals, schools and many more. With the absence of infrastructures the countries have been unable to make any headway in terms of economic development. To reverse centuries of slavery and colonialism on one hand and decades of coups and civil wars on the other hand, governments should focus their attention on building the infrastructures on the continent.

This is because the state of infrastructures on the continent is nothing to write home about: the roads, harbours, telecommunications, health, education, market and airport are either none existence or are in a state to appalling to describe. We have neglected the few that have existed to decay yet we have forgotten that no continent or nation no matter the size of the natural resources that she has can develop without investing in infrastructure. That is why Democratic Republic of Congo has every mineral you can think of yet they are one of the poorest on the continent. That is why Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong have developed and that is why President Elect Obama is talking about building US infrastructures because they are the engines that run the economy. You cannot export if you do not have harbours and airports to support it. You cannot attract tourists if you do not have airport, hotels and other infrastructure that support it. You cannot move goods from centres of production to centres of consumption if you do not have roads, rail lines and inland water infrastructure to deliver it. You cannot supply the industries with doctors, architects, bankers, lawyers, planners, engineers, teachers, nurses if you do not have the educational infrastructure to deliver it. And you cannot run an efficient and vibrant economy if you do not have the energy and telecommunication infrastructures in place. Africa has been experiencing serious disruptions in the energy sector for years and no government has seen any wisdom to solve. As a result factories are folding up and are laying off workers and we are waiting for nature to help fill our dams before we rectify the problem. Could these do nothing approaches to problem solving help our continent and nations to develop? What are we doing with the abundance of sunshine on the continent? We have not taken advantage of it, have we? We have sunshine 365 days and we have not tap into solar energy which is cheap and more reliable than hydro. It is another indication of the useless institutions that we have and lip service paid by the various political parties and their leaders to development. Look around yourselves and see if any of the goods you see are made in Africa. I mean the mobile phones, computers, televisions, cars and all the flashy things that Africans are crazing for. It is sad to note that almost all the raw materials needed to build these mobile phones, cars etc are obtained from countries on the continent.

To appreciate the importance of infrastructure as the bedrock of the continent’s development let us consider transportation infrastructure in a country for example. The development of every country is strongly dependent on a reliable transportation infrastructure system for internal transportation and for linking rural communities to market centres. The role of infrastructure to the economy of a nation cannot be overemphasized especially its effect on sustainable development, GDP growth, inflation, and poverty reduction. Efficient and effective provision of transportation infrastructure in a nation underlines all attempts to reduce poverty.

Transportation infrastructure plays essential role by unifying all sectors of the economy including agriculture, health, education, trade, industries, and services. It is therefore said that transportation is the life wire of the economy. Without transport infrastructure social and economic activities and development in general will stagnate. Transport infrastructure ensures that raw materials are brought to the factory, while industrial finished goods are also distributed to market centres and communities where they are mostly needed. Agriculture commodities such as food crops are made available to urban dwellers through roads, rails, airports and harbours. Transportation infrastructure also ensures that services produced elsewhere are available where they are needed and at appropriate time.

Transportation infrastructure again makes the administration of political entities such as districts, boroughs and regions easy because it provides access to social infrastructural facilities such as schools, clinics, hospitals, markets, security services, and administrative offices. Transportation infrastructure has a correlation in the improvement of the overall living standards of people living in both rural and urban communities. It improves the quality of life of the people and has added advantage of ensuring rapid growth and sustainable development and has a long run effect of alleviating poverty.

In areas where transportation infrastructure facilities are unavailable or have deteriorated in the serious difficulties are encountered in the production, distribution and marketing of goods and services. Such situations also have negative implications for the patronage of goods and services produced as well as usage of such facilities such as clinics, hospitals, markets, and schools. This has a negative repercussion on the state and quality of life of the people affected by such situations as well as a down trodden effect on production and productivity levels in the areas where the transportation infrastructure condition is bad. It is a well recognized fact that transportation infrastructure and for that matter all infrastructure investments have correlations in development and hence the standard of living of the people.

To move the continent away from its current predicament, public transportation infrastructure works should be carried out by all governments. Fast speed rail lines should be constructed to link the various parts of the continent. This will make the transport of bulky raw materials and goods easier. Roads should be constructed to make transportation less difficult. River Nile which is the longest river in the world should be developed as a major internal water transportation network so that goods could be transported up and down the stream. The other major rivers such as the Limpopo, Zambezi, Congo, Niger all should be developed to make it possible for goods and people to move easily. Every effort should be made to develop the technology that will harness the solar energy potential of the Sahara Desert so as to make access to energy easily.

Major harbours such as those in Durban, Cape Town, Lagos, Tema, Mombasa, Port Said, Tunis, Tripoli and Benghazi should be developed be expanded if necessary and every effort should be made to remove every administration bottleneck and bureaucracy that will cripple trade and development. The airport infrastructure should be developed to make it easier for people to move with ease throughout the continent. The international airports in each country should be expanded if need be and should be equipped with modern technology to make less cumbersome for passengers to go through. Besides bureaucracies, administration bottlenecks, delays that inhibit easy flow of people should be eliminated. Therefore there should be a common immigration policy which is well streamlined to take care of the people. The benefit of transportation investment is enormous and therefore should be given a priority.

If we can benefit so much from transportation infrastructure then how about our education sector upon which the development of the continent and our nations rest? The education infrastructures on the continent and in our nations have not been developed. Have they? Look at the world ranking of Universities and see where the first university on the continent falls. Can we afford to develop the continent and our nations with low quality graduates not to mention the millions of illiterates and semi-literates that roam around the continent and in our countries? Of the about 9,760 Accredited universities in the World, less than 10 universities were able to make it the top 500 and even those that made it about 90% came from South Africa which is the most developed country on the continent (source: topuniversities.com). It is abundantly clear that our education system is not producing the architects, engineers, planners, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers, nurses and the scientists that we need in the 21st Century. That is why every major architectural and engineering activity on the continent is undertaken by foreigners and foreign companies especially from USA, Japan, China, India and Europe. And any continent and for that matter any nation that depends on foreign expertise for her survival is doom to fail in the long run.

The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, and books. They lack them because we cannot build them; we cannot build them because the curricula have not prepared our students to build them. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology. In many of our universities, Polytechnics and secondary schools lecturers/teachers are still teaching students the same way the 19th century academic institutions taught forgetting that we are in the 21st century. The same notes given a final year student four years ago are still being given to first year students with no addition and subtraction. Lecturers cannot write books for students because they do not have the resources to carry out research that form the basis of any academic material.

Whereas students in advanced countries get their hands on books immediately they are released those on the continent have to wait 4 years or even more to get the same books. What is more the academic facilities including libraries are in a state too appalling to describe. Not a single of our universities can boast of more than two million volumes of books in their libraries. Even the few books that they have are so old that information contained in them are useless. Very few books have been published by Africans. Due to this most students have to rely on the notes that lecturers give them. This is state of our universities and the little I say about our Polytechnics and secondary schools (High Schools) the better. Our research institutions have achieved very little because they are underfunded and the researchers do not have the expertise and the facilities to carry out any meaningful research. A case in point is Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) located at New Tafo in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Despite decades of its existence Ghana still exports raw cocoa beans for peanuts. No value has been added to the cocoa. CRIG has not been able to come up with other ways in which to use the beans to benefit Ghanaians despite the mounting evidence that the beans have several potential uses. In order to make Africa continent and the governments should make education a priority. They should as matter of urgency and of necessity invest in educational infrastructure.

In addition to these institutions of higher learning should be structured to produce engineers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, sociologists and all the various human resource needed for nation building. Exchange programmes should be established between the institutions and universities on the continent so that students on the continent could meet, interact and share ideas. Every effort should be used to raise the learning and quality of learning on the continent. Effort should be made to attract Africans in the Diaspora to come and share their expertise with their colleagues and contribute their knowledge towards the development of the continent. Research institutions should be established across the continent and funding provided to them to come up with how the various natural resources on the continent could be used to benefit the people. With the right human resource capacity Africans could now embark on their journey of liberating her people from poverty

How about the state of the housing infrastructure? A visit to any village or town gives the same picture of poor housing and poor quality of public service. People are living in mud/thatched houses with bamboo or raffia leaf as roofing sheet with no electricity, potable water and clinics. They live in a subsistence environment without social security, health insurance and are condemned to poverty, desperation and hopelessness. Those living in urban areas are without jobs, without mortgage, and face high utility bills with poor service. They face constant barrage of water and energy disruptions everyday. In every country, region, district the situation is not different. On the other hand our MPs, ministers, vice presidents, the presidents and political leaders, their cronies and families live in total luxury with mansions, SUVs, bodyguards, fat salaries, fat bonuses, house servants and they have all the resources of the continent at their disposal. Yet they claim to be serving the people. How can it be? Governments should invite the private sector to take part in the delivery of housing. Land and other service infrastructure such water, electricity and waste management should be provided to make it less difficult for the private sector to join.

Look at the state of the agricultural sector. How many of our farmers have their own tractors and farming equipments to produce beyond the level of subsistence? Virtually none. Nearly all the important equipments needed to make the agric sector viable and productive have to be imported and how many of our farmers have their own resources to buy even the basic machinery to expand their farms? Although we are in the 21st Century yet our farming practices indicate that we have still not moved beyond the 19th century. This is the more reason why we continue to hunger even though rich soils abound in Africa. During the early part of the 2008 financial crisis violence broke out in Egypt, Sierra Leone and in many other countries on the continent. Why is this so? The answer is we have neglected the sector for quite too long. Farmers have no access to irrigation which can make farming all year round possible. They have to rely on nature for rain before they can start planting. They have no access to credits could help them to expand their farms. Yet Ethiopia for example could afford millions of dollars to buy military hardware while famine threatens to annihilate her people. She cannot afford tractors and irrigation equipments that could help put food on the table and bring back her people’s dignity. Lack of agricultural infrastructure has brought famine to millions on the continent. There are no silos for storage during bumper harvest. No roads to producing areas. We under utilise our land for lack of political commitment. We cannot develop our economies if we fail to invest in infrastructure.

Besides, trade among the countries should be encouraged at all levels. Africans must know that together they stand or fall and therefore the old politics of former colonial master first and neighbours second should be discouraged and stopped straightway. This is the more reason why it is so important that these countries trade among themselves, develop their market, share their resources so that the lives of their citizens will improve. The continent should not be allowed to serve as the dumping ground for European manufactured goods. Import substitution industries should be adopted widely on the continent and trade should be encouraged at all levels. The era where raw materials with little added value are exported for peanuts should be given the boot. As the Americans used to say to the Japanese‘if Japan wants a share of the American market then their goods should be manufactured right here in America. The same yardstick should apply to any company or country that wants a share of the African raw material.

All national interests should give way to a common interest for the good of the people on the continent and the allegiance and influence of outside bodies should be treated as detraction. Africa and her people must be given a serious consideration in all matters of economic, social and political developments. The old philosophy of selling out the continent to international cartels and corporation should be given the boot. Africans should know that the Europeans, Americans and their Bretton Wood Institutions have no interest to see them develop at best they would rather that slavery and colonialism were back.

The above mentioned issues should be given a priority if Africa is to break away from the cycle of poverty which the people have endured for decades if not centuries.

Hope that the 21st Century will be different for the continent. Hope that infrastructure building will be given a higher priority by the various African Union members.