Members of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa will focus on regional infrastructure issues at their annual meeting this week in Tunis.
The 6th Annual Meeting of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) will take place on 6 and 7 May 2010 in Tunis. The ICA is a platform for dialogue and coordination launched at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in 2005.
The role of the ICA is to help improve the lives and economic well-being of Africa's people by promoting increased investment in infrastructure in Africa. Acting as a catalyst, the ICA whose secretariat is hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB), works to enhance and accelerate the development of Africa's infrastructure, and to help remove technical and policy barriers.
The meeting, co-hosted by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the AfDB, will be on the theme, Integrating African Economies through Regional Infrastructure. Commenting ahead of the meeting, the AfDB Vice-President, Bobby J Pittman, said: "The challenge of achieving regional economic integration requires, among others, regional solutions; African institutions, such as the AU Commission, NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency, working together with the Regional Economic Communities to deliver improvements in trans-boundary infrastructure."
The ICA's Co-ordinator, Alex Rugamba, added: "This meeting, which will bring Africa's continent-wide and regional institutions together with G8 countries and major multilateral agencies, illustrates how coordination through the ICA can foster the development of Africa's regional infrastructure, for the benefit of all of Africa's people."
The meeting will be attended by senior representatives of G8 governments, multilateral agencies such as the AfDB, the World Bank, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank, and by African institutions such as the African Union Commission, NEPAD, the Regional Economic Communities and regional development banks. Senior representatives from the Arab Funds Coordination Group, China, Korea and India will also attend.
Discussions at the meeting will focus on Delivering Regional Infrastructure in Africa, in particular, by accelerating Successful Implementation of Regional Infrastructure Programmes. There will also be a workshop on Public-Private Partnership Frameworks for Regional Infrastructure.
The meeting will be co-chaired by David Moloney, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Bobby J. Pittman, AfDB Vice-President, Infrastructure, Private Sector and Regional Integration.
The 2009 meeting was held in Rome in March 2009 whilst Italy was holding the Presidency of the G8. Please visit to see the outcomes statement (in French and English) from the 2009 meeting.
Related Sections
Links
Infrastructure Consortium for Africa website
Contacts
Lotfi Madani
