“If you see a set of bright, shining lights at night, it’s not a vehicle but a giraffe that got stuck in a pothole in the middle of the road. So, watch out,” Zambians used to joke about the state of their roads a few years ago.
Now the country’s main highways have been tarred, making it easier for farmers and businesspeople to transport their crops and goods to market.
With a good regional road network, Zambia could also export more maize, a staple food, to neighbouring countries.
But a considerable number of repairs need to be done to the roads that link this Southern African country to Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The slow and erratic railway service between Zambia and Tanzania, Tanzam, also needs a facelift.
Zambia and Tanzania are too poor to shoulder this burden, however. For now then, the responsibility of doing repairs is falling on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), a blueprint designed by African leaders to pull the continent out of poverty.
Nepad founders, who include South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart, Olusegun Obasanjo, have committed themselves to setting up and improving infrastructure across the continent.
They have also identified needs in the transport, energy, communication technology, water and sanitation sectors which should receive attention first, in this regard.
“I think the priority should be roads, railways and ports, which are crucial to Africa’s development. Without them you can’t move goods,” Kurt Shillinger of the Johannesburg-based South African Institute of International Affairs, said on Wednesday, July 7. Shillinger specialises in Nepad-related issues.
But he warned that even improved roads would not accelerate Africa’s development if the continent’s customs and immigration regimes remained out of kilter.
“You can have good roads, (but) if you can’t move goods around the region, then the roads become useless,” he argued.
Efforts to harmonise the customs regimes in the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) are underway. But, so far, only South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia have aligned their regulations.
Since it was adopted in 2001 by the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) (now the African Union, AU), Nepad’s biggest challenge has been raising the money to finance its ambitions.
The partnership is seeking $64-billion a year from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations and other foreign investors to rebuild Africa — this in return for good governance.
But the G8, which comprises Japan, Russia, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Britain and the United States, seems to be dragging its feet over funding.
This led a visibly frustrated Obasanjo to tell delegates to the AU’s annual summit held in Ethiopia, July 6 to 8: “The list of unfulfilled promises by our partners is growing longer.”
But, says Shillinger, “I don’t think Nepad is doing enough to attract investment to Africa. Business people always feel reluctant to invest where there is corruption, no good governance and no property rights.”
Observers say the seizure of land in Zimbabwe from 4Â 500 white commercial farmers since 2000 has dented Africa’s image as a continent where property rights are respected.
While Harare claims the seizures form part of efforts to end racial imbalances in land ownership that date back to the colonial era, critics allege that relatively little of this land has been given to blacks.
“Whenever foreigners want to invest they first look at the conditions of court, the independence of the judiciary — and property rights,” says Shillinger.
On June 30, South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel told a gathering in the capital, Pretoria, that increased pressure should be brought on the G8 to meet its commitments to Africa. The meeting focused on the Commission for Africa, recently created by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to advise him on the continent.
The Chairman of the Commission, Nick Stern, warned that it would “want action plans with specifics, a plan that generates political will” in order to provide increased assistance.
On its website, Nepad says that certain projects financed by the African Development Bank have nonetheless gotten underway.
The bank, based in the Ivorian commercial hub of Abidjan, has funded programmes worth $372,5-million — while the World Bank has spent $570-million since 2001 on Nepad-related work. The total budget required to fund 16 or so infrastructure projects that have been given priority by Nepad amounts to $8,1-billion.
These projects include the West Africa Gas Pipeline project and the West Africa Power project. The latter will serve Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo.
In East Africa, Nepad has embarked on setting up a road network measuring 5,102 kilometres, which the World Bank has agreed to fund to the tune of about $500-million — this over a three-year period. The European Union will also plough $375-million into the project over a five-year period, according to Nepad.
In SADC, the DRC, Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa have formed a company to develop the Western Power Corridor Interconnection project. The five countries have agreed an equity contribution of 20% to enable the project, based in the DRC, to get underway. — IPS