Tunis — The Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) will from December 3-4, 2007 organise a meeting on the theme: "Financing Transport for Growth in Africa", in Tunis.

The meeting aims at facilitating private sector investment in transport projects (road, rail, air, maritime and urban), across the continent requiring financing in the short and medium term. Some of the projects to be presented by country sponsors at the meeting include a planned railway between Djibouti and Ethiopia, a container port at Mohammedia in Morocco, the Winelands Toll Road in South Africa, Mayumba Port in Gabon, and the Kazungula Bridge between Botswana and Zambia

The meeting will also offer an opportunity for participants to share lessons from successful public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Africa's transport sector, as well as key cross-cutting issues such as cost recovery and maintenance, internal resource mobilisation, and road safety.

The meeting will be attended by key decision-makers from project developers, contractors, operators, banks and transaction advisors.

Representatives of multilateral and bilateral donor agencies, governments, regional economic communities (RECs), the African Union Commission and NEPAD will also attend.

Transport networks contribute to Africa's economic development in a variety of ways, providing connectivity and mobility between and within countries, connecting rural areas to markets, and addressing congestion bottlenecks in cities. To help meet Africa's infrastructure deficit, public money will be used in different ways to leverage private participation. Capital mobilisation, including private-sector capital, is one of the "pillars" of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the economic revival initiative launched five years ago by the African Union.