Answers sought to Africa’s infrastructure challenges

0
Africa Satellite image at night

Leaders from across the African infrastructure sector launch call for papers, seeking expert insights and research ahead of continental conference.

As hundreds of industry and policy leaders prepare to meet in Lagos this spring to address Africa’s infrastructure development, a call has been issued for experts to propose answers to the big challenges faced as the continent ramps up investment.

Africa is facing an unprecedented period for development as the world seeks to meet Sustainable Development Goals, achieve climate resilience and recover from the global pandemic.

Nigeria, which is hosting the conference, is among the countries leading the way. It is undertaking major investments in new rail, airport, deep seaport and expressway capacity to strengthen its global connectivity. More widely in Africa, energy is a growing focus for investors, as evidenced by projects like the large north-south energy grid connection under development in Angola and an AfDB programme to map the continent’s entire hydropower capacity.

To meet these needs, however, issues around delivery and design capacity, policy facilitation and investment risk need to be addressed – and it is likely Africa will fail to achieve its potential without doing so.

With that in mind, continental industry leaders have called for experts to come forward and potentially address the conference in May with insights on the following subjects:

  1. Global partnerships with African consultancies for infrastructure delivery.
  2. Sustainability and maintenance of infrastructure: exploring diverse opportunities.
  3. Infrastructure delivery: Best practices towards enhanced sustainable implementation.
  4. Challenges and opportunities in infrastructure development in Africa.
  5. COVID-19 pandemic: impact on infrastructure development.
  6. Infrastructure development and the environment: examining the main issues.
  7. The PPP model and infrastructure development in Africa, and
  8. Infrastructure development and the 5G network: The potential benefits to Africa’s economy.

Submissions
Authors are invited to submit two-three page abstracts by 28th February 2022, ahead of the conference in May to [email protected].

Submissions accepted for the conference will be invited to provide a final paper of five pages by 15th of April, with the potential to present it to industry leaders at the FIDIC Africa Infrastructure Conference, hosted by the Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria, from 15 to 18 May 2022.

For full details of about submissions, click here