1 Background
Infrastructure has experienced a remarkable political renaissance in development planning at national, regional, and continental scales in Africa over the past two decades (see Wethal 2019; Zajontz and Taylor 2021). Expanding and upgrading the continent’s road networks, railways, ports, power plants, energy grids, waterways, fibre cables, etc. is now commonly accepted as a prerequisite for advancing Africa’s economic integration and industrialisation. For the African Union (AU), infrastructure has therefore steadily crystallised into a distinct policy field. In its Agenda 2063, the AU has pledged to work towards ‘world class, integrative infrastructure that criss-crosses the continent’ by 2063 (African Union 2015, §20). The agenda contains several ‘flagship’ projects in the infrastructure sector, including the African Integrated High-Speed Railway Network, an integrated e-economy, and the establishment of a Single African Air-Transport Market (SAATM). For other key integration projects, infrastructure development is frequently described as the main enabler. According to the AU’s high representative for infrastructure development in Africa, Raila Odinga, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can ‘only be realized through sound infrastructure in transport and energy sectors’.1 Generally, expectations are widespread and high that the improvement of economic infrastructure will boost Africa’s intra- and interregional trade, spur economic growth, and facilitate the continent’s integration into the global economy.
The political renaissance of ‘big’ infrastructure in Africa has received further impetus following the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the emergence of a global regime of ‘infrastructure-led development’ (Schindler and Kanai 2021), which is geared towards integrating hitherto less connected regions and so-called frontier economies into the global economy by means of large-scale networked infrastructure. Competing global connectivity initiatives, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the European Union’s Global Gateway
The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated digitalisation, exposed the gaps in energy in rural areas and the gender divide, and highlighted the need to develop infrastructure that is smart, climate resilient, inclusive and sustainable.2
Infrastructure has developed into an increasingly important matter not only of the AU’s internal politics but also of the AU’s external relations. In 2021, several AU institutions and key individuals continued to shape the continent’s infrastructure agenda (see also Yearbook on the African Union 2000, 129–131).
2 Decision-Making and Implementation
[t]he issue of infrastructural development is particularly important to me. I would do everything possible to ensure that this term effectively witnesses the launch of one of our major regional infrastructure projects. … We must choose these regional projects according to the relevance, feasibility and our resource mobilisation capacities. The Department of Infrastructure and the Development Agency would be called upon to serve this exciting ambition. In relation to this infrastructure issue, I will call upon the innovation and dynamism of our private sector, whose role in the Pan-Africanist project must be strengthened. (AUC Chairperson 2021)
The reappointment of Abou-Zeid as the commissioner for infrastructure and energy is a clear vote of confidence and will ensure continuity within the AUC in the fields of infrastructure and energy. It can be presumed that her 30 years of professional experience in international organisations, inter alia at the AfDB and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), have helped her to liaise with key stakeholders in the sector. During the term of the first Faki AUC, Abou-Zeid’s department has been very proactive in driving continental infrastructure initiatives, and the commissioner herself has been vocal about issues such as gender sensitivity and climate resilience in the infrastructure sector (see Yearbook on the African Union 2020, 136f.).
Within the Institutional Architecture for Infrastructure Development in Africa, which was institutionalised in 2012, the AUC’s Department of Infrastructure and Energy oversees infrastructure policies and prepares decision-making on infrastructure-related matters for the Council for Infrastructure Development (CID). It is advised by the Infrastructure Advisory Group, which convenes meetings with infrastructure experts and high-level officials from relevant bodies at least biannually. The CID for its part is composed of top officials from the AUC, the REC s, the AfDB, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and provides programmatic guidelines for the sector, arbitrates and approves programmes and harmonisation measures in the sector, and advises the specialised technical committees (STC s) and the AU Executive Council, which in turn is answerable to the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government (AU Commission 2017). Together with AUDA–NEPAD (an integration of
Between 28 and 30 June 2021, the 3rd Ordinary Session of the STC on Transport, Transcontinental and Interregional Infrastructures, and Energy (STC–TTIIE) convened virtually. The STC–TTIIE brings together the ministers of transport and/or infrastructure as well as other key stakeholders from the member states, the REC s, and relevant continental institutions and agencies. It is one of two STC s that are commonly concerned with infrastructure-related decision-making, the other one being the STC on Communication and Information Communications Technology (STC–ICT). The STC s receive advice from the CID and report to the AU Executive Council, which in turn is answerable to the AU Assembly (AU Commission 2017).
Investments in infrastructure will enhance the continent’s resilience, sustainability, and preparedness to future crises while stimulating recovery. … The post COVID-19 era requires more agile decision-making and coordination of efforts by all stakeholders. We must be able to make use of the challenges to our own benefit shifting to digitalised and decarbonised pathways with value addition and new business models at the centre for more inclusive, resilient and sustainable societies.3
Post-pandemic infrastructure finance was high up on the agenda at the STC–TTIIE meeting. The ministerial session validated the Financing Strategy for the PIDA Priority Action Plan 2 (PIDA PAP 2). The ordinary session also extended
The 3rd Ordinary Session of the STC–TTIIE also deliberated on the dispute settlement mechanism for the SAATM. The SAATM, another flagship project of Agenda 2063, is aimed at establishing a continent-wide, integrated market for air transportation by removing bureaucratic and legal hurdles and streamlining consumer protection, competition, and safety regulations under the auspices of an executing agency, the African Civil Aviation Commission. By 2021, 35 member states, representing 89 per cent of intra-African air traffic, had signed a solemn declaration to operationalise the SAATM (AU Commission 2021a, 15–16). The ministerial meeting at the STC–TTIIE session furthermore revised the so-called Windhoek targets on aviation security and facilitation, a set of rules and targets initially adopted by the ministers in charge in 2016.
Regional priority projects … need to be incorporated in national development plans and also get prioritised in regional economic communities’ infrastructure master plans. … Infrastructure projects that cut
across national boundaries and are regional can all be developed simultaneously, with each country committing to do its part while the REC s provide supporting and coordinating roles.5
Throughout the year, Odinga has also continued to advocate the ‘establishment of an Africa fund for infrastructure to support important and necessary project preparation and development of a pipeline of bankable infrastructure projects’.6 At a two-day high-level conference organised by the AUC and AUDA–NEPAD at the Expo 2020 (Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 2021), the high representative pointed out that African pension funds managed approximately $350 billion in assets in sub-Saharan Africa, a pool of capital that the AU should tap into by offering bankable infrastructure projects through a dedicated African infrastructure fund.7 Some key developments of AU infrastructure policies are discussed next.
3 Major Developments in 2021
In the infrastructure realm, the African Union initiated the year 2021 with its 6th PIDA Week, a four-day event that brought together relevant stakeholders to deliberate on developments in the infrastructure sector. Discussions at the PIDA Week traditionally also centre around the nexus between infrastructure and regional integration, transformative economic growth, and job creation. Due to the pandemic, events took on different virtual formats this time. The 6th PIDA Week was themed ‘New decade, new realities, new priorities: Positioning PIDA and infrastructure development in Africa’s continued growth and economic recovery’. The PIDA Week saw events on resource mobilisation, the African Single Electricity Market (AfSEM), cyber security, the African Integrated High-Speed Railway Network, the AfCFTA, PIDA PAP 2, gender-responsive infrastructure finance, and a session on the PIDA Jobs Outlook programme. The forum also hosted a session of the Continental Business Network, which focused on the role of the private sector in accelerating infrastructure development (AUDA–NEPAD 2021c).
[t]he availability of abundant renewable energy resources on the continent such as hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and bio-energy can transform Africa’s energy sector to modern and sustainable energy through both grid and off-grid systems. These resources offer opportunities to accelerate clean energy access on the continent through energy transition and especially factoring natural gas as an energy transition fuel for power and clean cooking.8
Abou-Zeid called upon COP26 delegates to commit to measures to ‘address the huge financing gap to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050’. Müller hailed the proposed Africa–EU Green Energy Initiative as a suitable instrument to facilitate bi-continental cooperation to fight climate change and advance decarbonisation.9 Concrete progress in further institutionalising the integration of Africa’s energy market was made earlier in the year.
3.1 The Launch of the African Single Electricity Market
The AfSEM was officially launched in a virtual event on 3 June 2021. The AfSEM was first conceived in 2015 in the AU programme on the harmonisation of regulatory frameworks for the electricity market in Africa, which was funded by the EU. The ultimate goal of the AfSEM is achieving 100 per cent access to electricity in the continent by 2030, in line with the AU Agenda 2063 and the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 7.10 Currently, 600 million people on the continent still lack access to electricity. The AU is determined to reach the above goal by harmonising regulatory frameworks in the electricity sector, by aligning national and regional master plans, and by coordinating and successively integrating power generation, transmission, and distribution at the
[i]t is important that the AU Member States take ownership in the development and implementation of these continental initiatives. This is necessary to ensure access to reliable energy services, as well as providing the necessary policy and financial instruments for one continental electricity market, and one continental interconnection grid at all levels. (AUC Deputy Chairperson, 2021)
The AUC has since started to establish a permanent technical unit responsible for the implementation of the master plan to ensure smooth coordination as well as skills transfer between the AU and the five regional power pools and to align the plan with existing infrastructure projects, including PIDA energy projects. In line with a previously conducted baseline study, a first phase of the AfSEM was started (due to be achieved by 2023) by initiating the Continental Master Plan project with a 30-month implementation period and envisaging a project cost of $17.5 million. It is co-financed by the EU, the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, Agence Française de Développement, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and the International Atomic Energy Agency and has the following main objectives: to develop a continental transmission master plan, to update and align regional master plans, and to improve the
3.2 The Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA)
The lessons which we can take forward into the implementation of PIDA-PAP II is that we need to have efficient use of scarce project preparation funds for early stage project preparation to take projects to bankability.12
Sectoral distribution of PIDA PAP 2 projects
SOURCE: AUTHOR’S COMPILATION, BASED ON AUDA–NEPAD (2021B)
Before the onset of PIDA, regional infrastructure projects were not prioritised. When we moved from PIDA Priority Action Plan 1 to PIDA Priority Action Plan 2, we took on a corridor approach, in order for us to think beyond country boundaries. The corridor approach is the main change in paradigm in our continent’s infrastructure development. Africa is therefore ready for investment – it has gone through a process of consultation, prioritisation and development of tools with strong political will. (AU Commission 2021b)
The ICA incorporates Agenda 2063 principles and aims at improving the effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of PIDA projects. The ICA has two main characteristics: (1) it prioritises cross-sectoral infrastructure, whereby different infrastructure sectors, such as transport, energy, and ICT, are planned in a coordinated manner and linked to create synergies, and (2) it emphasises projects that maximise employment creation, gender sensitivity, climate friendliness, and urban-rural connectivity (AUDA–NEPAD 2020, 31; African Union 2020, 7–8). Furthermore, climate resilience and smart technologies became important selection criteria for PIDA PAP 2 projects.13
In May, AUDA–NEPAD convened a two-day virtual technical meeting to appraise the status of the 69 PIDA PAP 2 projects. The meeting was attended by representatives from the AUC, the AfDB, UNECA, the REC s, and the member states. The meeting discussed strategies on implementation, financing,
The PIDA Financing Strategy, developed by the AfDB, was agreed to by the ministerial session of the STC–TTIIE in June. With the strategy, the AU hopes to address financial bottlenecks that severely compromised the progress of many PIDA projects during the first action plan. The Covid-19 pandemic has put an additional strain on government budgets across the continent. Rising sovereign debt levels and protracted debt restructuration talks have negatively affected governments’ abilities to borrow money at international capital markets, with infrastructure lending from multilateral development banks and bilateral creditors having become markedly more restrictive (see Zajontz 2022). The Financing Strategy foresees reinforced coordination among stakeholders to foster an enabling environment and political support in the preparation of projects and aspires to mobilise alternative financing, not least from the private sector, throughout the entire life cycle of the projects.16 As noted above, the AU aspires to raise more capital within Africa for regional infrastructure projects, including from the private sector and institutional investors. However, these efforts are unlikely to yield sufficient results in the short term. Cooperation with external partners, such as China, the EU, and the USA, will remain pivotal for the AU.
4 Belts, Gateways and Better Worlds: The AU’s Growing Brokerage Role in Global Connectivity Initiatives
Announcements made by the US government and the EU in 2021 have reinforced the ‘global race to build Africa’s infrastructure’ (see Gil et al. 2019), as
limit your [African governments’] partnerships with other countries. We want to make your partnerships with us even stronger. We don’t want to make you choose. We want to give you choices.19
However, the US government has communicated rather bluntly that the B3W is a political reaction to growing geopolitical and geoeconomic competition with China. The US government seems no longer willing to leave infrastructure development in the Global South to Chinese firms, not least in strategic and security-sensitive sectors such as ICT and energy.
with this Global Gateway, we are showing that we now step outwards to support around the world the investment in infrastructure that is necessary for our partners. We all know that there is a huge investment need out there, when it comes to global infrastructure. … Global Gateway is the European Union’s plan, or you may call it roadmap, for major investment in infrastructure development around the world. We want to take a different approach. We want to show that a democratic, value-driven approach can deliver on the most pressing challenges. (quoted in European Commission 2021b)
The EU has pledged to mobilise investments worth $300 billion between 2021 and 2027, drawing on a combination of EU and member states’ sources, European financial institutions, and the private sector. According to a joint communication from the EU Commission, the Global Gateway will focus on physical infrastructure, such as fibre optic cables, clean transport corridors, and clean power transmission lines, with the aim of strengthening digital, transport, and energy networks (European Commission 2021a, 1–2).
Global Gateway is about increasing investments promoting democratic values and high standards, good governance and transparency, equal partnerships, green and clean, secure infrastructure.20
In the energy sector, the initiative proposes the Africa–EU Green Energy Initiative to support Africa’s green transition in the energy sector by increasing renewable energy capacity. The EU pledges to mobilise €2.4 billion in grants for sub-Saharan Africa and €1.08 billion for North Africa to support renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the just transition and greening of local value chains (European Commission 2021a). The executive vice president of
Both Western connectivity initiatives – the B3W and the Global Gateway – must be understood as strategic attempts to counter the predominance of Chinese state-owned enterprises (and banks) in many infrastructure markets in the Global South – and the geopolitical implications of this pre-dominance. According to official Chinese sources, Chinese companies implemented 31.4 per cent of all infrastructure projects on the African continent in 2020 (PR China 2021). Since the inception of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, Chinese companies have been involved in the construction or rehabilitation of 10,000 km of railways, nearly 100,000 km of highways, nearly 1,000 bridges, and 100 ports and 66,000 km of power transmission and distribution networks. Chinese firms, moreover, installed a power-generating capacity of 120 million kW, resulting in communications networks spanning a 150,000 km that serve 700 million user terminals (ibid.).
Over the past decade, the Chinese government has actively ‘regionalised’ its engagement in the African infrastructure sector, not least to account for the fact that many major infrastructure projects on the continent depend on their successful implementation for planning and coordination at the continental and regional levels of governance. In 2015, the AU signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese government to spur cooperation in developing continental transport networks, including high-speed railways, aviation and highways, and other infrastructures to support Africa’s industrialisation. In official narratives, BRI connectivity projects have been described as furthering the AU’s infrastructure development agenda as well as the AfCFTA. Yet, questions have been raised about the ‘presumed harmony of interests between the AfCFTA and the BRI in view of potential issues of competition’ (Large 2021, 111).
China will establish a coordination mechanism for the BRI cooperation with the AU Commission in a bid to effectively link the related executive departments and resources of both sides, establish channels and mechanisms for exchanges, communication and consultation, and solve problems encountered in planning and executing projects in a timely manner, thus promoting the smooth implementation of the Cooperation Plan under Belt and Road. … China is working with Africa to jointly formulate the China-Africa Infrastructure Cooperation Plan to support Chinese enterprises in participating in Africa’s infrastructure development through the investment-construction-operation model. The two sides will focus on strengthening cooperation on energy, transport, information, telecommunications and cross-border water resources. China and Africa will join hands to implement a number of key connectivity projects. (Liu 2021)
The Chinese government evidently further institutionalises its cooperation with the AU in the context of the BRI, which will strengthen the role of the AU in co-determining infrastructure projects with Chinese involvement on the continent and will further complement China’s bilateral dealings with African governments in the infrastructure sector.
note[s] the persistent infrastructural gap in Africa and pledge to resolve the problem by encouraging and promoting innovative and favorable Chinese financial support in infrastructural projects in Africa over the next three years. (FOCAC 2021, §3.2.1)
The plan furthermore pledges to ‘create synergy between China-Africa infrastructural cooperation’ and PIDA PAP (ibid.). Chinese firms are explicitly encouraged to enter into public-private partnerships and to pursue trilateral and multilateral cooperation to advance projects in Africa. The Agenda 2063 flagship projects, such as the African Integrated High-Speed Railway Network,
Growing competition between China and Western powers for influence and market shares in Africa’s infrastructure sector could potentially help attracting more overall investment into African infrastructures. The role of the AU as a broker for continental and regional infrastructure projects is thereby getting increasingly complex. The AU has to not only mediate between national and regional/continental interests and priorities but also ensure that Africa’s inclusion into global connectivity initiatives that are driven by external actors aligns with the AU’s own development and integration goals. No doubt, the AU will be an increasingly sought-after dialogue partner in Beijing, Brussels, and Washington in the coming years.
5 Outlook
Ameliorating the negative repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic and efforts to boost the recovery of African economies will be at the forefront of AU policy-making in 2022. Infrastructure will remain central to these debates, just as the pressing question on how infrastructure finance can be solicited in times of extremely strained public budgets. It remains to be seen whether the anticipated dedicated African Infrastructure Fund is going to see the light of day in the coming years. Considering that many member states are facing enormous social and economic challenges, the AU’s task to ensure that they live up to their commitments to regional and continental infrastructure projects is unlikely to get any easier in 2022. In terms of implementation, the PIDA Task Force will concentrate efforts to mobilise funds for new PIDA priority projects to ensure that PIDA PAP 2 does not suffer the same fate as its predecessor. In the energy sector, the preparation of the Continental Master Plan for the AfSEM will require significant coordination work at AUDA–NEPAD.
After the announcement of the EU’s Global Gateway initiative and the explicit emphasis that Africa is meant to play a significant role in it, the upcoming 6th AU–EU Summit (Brussels, Belgium, February 2022) can be expected to give first indications of how AU–EU interregionalism in the infrastructural realm is going to evolve in the coming years. For the AU, it will be decisive to what extent the priorities of the Global Gateway initiative will align with its own infrastructure agenda, including the PIDA and the Agenda 2063 flagship projects. As China, the EU, and the USA are competing for influence in Africa’s infrastructure sectors, the AU has become an increasingly important supranational broker with the challenging task to mediate various interests across a number of scales.
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Literature
Websites
African Development Bank Group – Infrastructure sector. URL: <https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/sectors/infrastructure>.
Africa Infrastructure Knowledge Programme. URL: <http://infrastructureafrica.opendataforafrica.org/>.
AU Department of Infrastructure and Energy. URL: <https://au.int/en/ie>.
AU Programme for Infrastructure Development for Africa. URL: <https://www.au-pida.org/>.
Infrastructure Consortium for Africa. URL: <https://www.icafrica.org/>.
AU News Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.
Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 7 February 2021.
AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.
The Task Force is composed of representatives from the AUC, AUDA–NEPAD, the AfDB, and UNECA.
The East African [Nairobi], 3 January 2022.
See also Reuters [New York NY], 19 February 2021. URL: <https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2AJ0TG?__twitter_impression=true&s=03>.
AU News Release [Addis Ababa], 31 October 2021.
AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 9 November 2021.
Ibid.
AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 3 June 2021.
The five power pools are the Central African, East African, Southern African, and West African Power Pools as well as the Maghreb Electricity Committee. For their respective membership and a discussion of energy governance on the continent, see Medinilla et al. (2019).
Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.
Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.
Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 5 May 2021.
Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.
AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA.
The White House, Press Release [Washington DC], 12 June 2021.
The East African [Nairobi], 27 November 2021.
European Commission Press Release [Brussels], 1 December 2021.