Chapter 8 Infrastructure

In: Yearbook on the African Union Volume 2 (2021)
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Tim Zajontz
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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 initiative, and the US-led Build Back Better World (B3W), have actively courted African governments and regional organisations for projects in the transport, energy, information and communications technology (ICT), water, and other sectors. Questions of the extent to which such initiatives correspond with the goals of African integration and the structural transformation of African economies have become salient in recent years. In this highly dynamic global infrastructure landscape, the AU has graduated into an increasingly important supranational broker and is faced with the challenging task to mediate various interests across a number of scales (see also Ulf Engel, this Yearbook, chapter 11).

Aligning continental and regional infrastructure projects with national development priorities has remained a key challenge for the AU and the Regional Economic Communities (REC s) (see Lisinge and van Dijk 2022). Moreover, public funds and private investments are deemed insufficient to close the continent’s often invoked ‘infrastructure financing gap’, which the African Development Bank (AfDB) quantifies at $68–108 billion per annum (AfDB 2018, 63). The progress of the AU’s flagship infrastructure projects has been at best mixed, as a recent implementation report on the Agenda 2063 reveals (AUDANEPAD 2022, 31–33). The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated some of these challenges while simultaneously having added urgency to a concerted pan-African approach towards infrastructure development. As the AU commissioner for infrastructure and energy, Dr Amani Abou-Zeid, underlined:

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

The appointment of the new African Union Commission (AUC) during the 34th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly (virtual, 6–7 February 2021) has brought both leadership continuity as well as further prioritisation of infrastructure. In his bid for re-election, AUC Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat has accentuated the importance of Africa’s infrastructure for his second term. He called the AU’s infrastructure development agenda one of the ‘key integration projects’ and stated that

[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 AUDANEPAD (an integration of the African Union Development Agency and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development), which is the AU’s lead implementing agency in the infrastructure sector, the AUC’s Department of Infrastructure and Energy has successfully managed the transition from the first to the second priority action plan of the AU Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), which has entered a second ‘life cycle’ in 2021, as will be discussed further below.

Between 28 and 30 June 2021, the 3rd Ordinary Session of the STC on Transport, Transcontinental and Interregional Infrastructures, and Energy (STCTTIIE) convened virtually. The STCTTIIE 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 (STCICT). 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).

The STCTTIIE had last convened for an ordinary session in Cairo, Egypt, in April 2019 – hence before the onset of the pandemic. The third ordinary session was therefore fittingly themed ‘The Role of Infrastructure and Energy in the Post COVID-19 AFRICA: Towards Sustainable Economic Recovery, Resilience, Jobs, Industrialization and Trade’. Lesotho took over the rotating chair of the STCTTIIE from Egypt. Addressing representatives from member states, the REC s, and specialised agencies, the AU commissioner for infrastructure and energy, Abou-Zeid, emphasised the need to intensify efforts in the infrastructure realm amidst challenges arising from the pandemic:

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 STCTTIIE meeting. The ministerial session validated the Financing Strategy for the PIDA Priority Action Plan 2 (PIDA PAP 2). The ordinary session also extended the mandate of the PIDA Task Force, which it had set up in Cairo in 2019 to steer preparations for PIDA PAP 2.4 Moreover, the ministerial session of the STCTTIIE approved the Road Safety Action Plan for the Decade 2021–2030. The African continent trails behind other regions in global road safety statistics, with an estimated road traffic fatality rate at 26.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 17.0 per 100,000 in Southeast Asia and 9.3 per 100,000 in Europe. The plan was finalised at a workshop organised by the AUC and UNECA in May 2021. It foresees various measures to halve traffic fatalities by 2030, including the tightening and continental harmonisation of legal instruments, capacity-building, road safety audits, and human and financial resource mobilisation (UNECA 2021). In December 2021, Commissioner Abou-Zeid participated in a United Nations high-level meeting in New York in preparation for the General Assembly on Road Safety, to be held in July 2022.

The 3rd Ordinary Session of the STCTTIIE 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 STCTTIIE 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.

Throughout 2021, the AU’s high representative for infrastructure development, who was appointed by AUC Chairperson Faki in 2018, used several public occasions to remind member states of their responsibility to live up to their commitments in the infrastructure sector. The fact that the position was given to a high-profile politician like Odinga, who is Kenya’s former prime minister, must be seen as an attempt to add political weight to the supranational agency of the AUC in championing the AU’s infrastructure agenda. At the regional infrastructure master plan roundtable organised by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in November 2021, Odinga said:

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 AUDANEPAD 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 (AUDANEPAD 2021c).

Later in the year, alongside the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 31 October–13 November 2021), the African Energy Commission, the AU’s specialised agency in charge of developing, coordinating, and harmonising policies and legislation in the energy sector, hosted a virtual side event to deliberate on the question ‘Opportunities and Challenges for African Energy Transition: What will it take for Africa to reach Net-zero Emissions?’ Among other high-level participants, the meeting was addressed by the AU commissioner, Abou-Zeid; Algeria’s minister of energy transition and renewable energy, Benatou Ziane; and Germany’s then minister for economic cooperation and development, Dr Gerd Müller. Commissioner Abou-Zeid stressed that

[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 continental level. Infrastructure development in the context of the AfSEM is aimed at linking all the power utilities within the five regional power pools,11 interconnecting these pools, and ultimately connecting the continent’s power infrastructure with Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (ADF 2021, 1–2).

The EU’s Technical Assistance Facility has assisted the AUC’s Department of Infrastructure and Energy in drafting the AfSEM policy paper and in proposing a roadmap and a governance structure in consultation with member states, the REC s, the five regional power pools, and continental energy institutions. These documents were adopted by the AU Assembly at the 34th Ordinary Session. The AfSEM is targeted to be fully operational by 2040. If fully implemented, it would be the world’s largest single electricity market. At the virtual launch on 3 June 2021, the deputy chairperson of the AUC, Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa, reminded the member states of their responsibility to live up to the ambitious plan, stating that

[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 capacity and efficiency of the executing agency, namely AUDANEPAD, and the regional power pools (ADF 2021).

3.2 The Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA)

The year 2021 concluded a transition period within the AU’s PIDA. On 7 February 2021, the 34th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly adopted PIDA PAP 2 (2021–2030), after it had been approved by ministers of infrastructure in a virtual meeting in January. The formal validation followed an evaluation process of PIDA PAP 1 (2012–2020) and stakeholder consultations with the REC s and member states on the priorities for the second action plan (see Yearbook on the African Union 2020, 133–136). In a meeting in December 2020, the STCTTIIET finalised the preparations for PIDA PAP 2, including a priority list of 69 projects whose costs were projected to total $161 billion. The sectoral distribution of projects can be seen in Figure 8.1. The project list of PIDA PAP 2 is significantly shorter than the one of the previous action plan (PIDA PAP 1, which listed more than 400 individual projects). This is a clear reaction to overall low implementation rates of PIDA PAP 1 projects and the so-called infrastructure funding gap. Put differently, the stakeholders proposed a more realistic priority list for PIDA’s second project period. This was expressed by the chief executive officer of AUDANEPAD, Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, at the 6th PIDA Week:

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

FIGURE 8.1
FIGURE 8.1

Sectoral distribution of PIDA PAP 2 projects

SOURCE: AUTHOR’S COMPILATION, BASED ON AUDA–NEPAD (2021B)

However, the evaluation of PIDA PAP 1 revealed not only scarce infrastructure funds as a major obstacle for PIDA, but also the fact that ‘not all of the selected PIDA projects were considered priorities at their country level, leaving them without the much-needed political support and hindering their progress’ (AUDANEPAD 2020, 28). Furthermore, the evaluation process for PIDA PAP 1 has identified constraints in both the construction sector and administrative capacity, limitations arising from climate change and the environment, issues of political stability and political commitment, and concerns about gender inclusivity (ibid., 29). To improve the overall performance of PIDA projects, the AUC and AUDANEPAD have adopted an Integrated Corridor Approach (ICA) as the guiding concept for PIDA PAP 2. As AUDANEPAD chief executive officer Mayaki explained:

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 (AUDANEPAD 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, AUDANEPAD 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, and partnerships, and the REC s presented their respective projects in separate meetings. AUDANEPAD, as the lead implementing agency for PIDA, presented several instruments and mechanisms that are aimed at improving and accelerating the implementation of PIDA projects – namely the Job Creation Toolkit, the Service Delivery Mechanism, the PIDA Quality Label (PQL), the Quick Check Methodology, and the Continental Business Network.14 The PQL, for instance, was introduced in 2021. The label is awarded to PIDA projects that excel at adhering to international best practices in infrastructure development. AUDANEPAD collaborates with the Switzerland-based not-for-profit organisation Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation, which administers a global information technology platform that acts as a unique delivery system for the world’s best practices in infrastructure project preparation.15

The PIDA Financing Strategy, developed by the AfDB, was agreed to by the ministerial session of the STCTTIIE 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 the West has launched an attempt to ‘catch up’ with China’s outward investments in infrastructure in Africa (and other parts of the Global South). On 12 June 2021, the US government announced details about its B3W initiative, through which the US government, together with its partners from the Group of Seven (G7),17 plans to ‘help meet the tremendous infrastructure need in low- and middle-income countries … [by catalysing] hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment’. As the guiding principles of the B3W, the White House lists that it is value driven and climate friendly, that it pursues good governance and strong standards as well as strong strategic partnerships, and that it mobilises private capital and enhances the impact of multilateral public finance.18 US president Joe Biden used the COP26 in November 2021 to promote the B3W initiative, which aspires to ‘deliver high-quality, sustainable infrastructure … [which] prioritizes the fight against climate change from the moment the spade goes in the ground, and jumpstarts the green economic growth’ (Biden 2021). While Biden did not mention China’s BRI explicitly, he emphasised that ‘we offer positive alternatives to debt – to debt traps and corruption’, thereby alluding to controversies around issues of debt sustainability and transparency that have arisen in the context of some Chinese-funded large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa and elsewhere (see Zajontz 2022; Carmody et al. 2022).

Biden has since sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal for a first ‘listening session’ to discuss African infrastructure needs. In Abuja, Nigeria, Blinken tellingly stressed that the US government would not

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.

The same applies to the EU, whose commission president Ursula von der Leyen officially launched the Global Gateway initiative in December 2021, stating that

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).

Cooperation in the infrastructure sector has long been an important aspect of AUEU interregionalism. The EU has directed funding and human resources towards continental infrastructure programmes, such as PIDA, and has provided technical assistance and capacity-building to the AU and the REC s. Under the banner of the Global Gateway initiative, the EU now hopes to increase Europe’s leverage in Africa’s infrastructure sector. Just as in the context of the B3W, official narratives implicitly contrast the Global Gateway initiative with China’s BRI by emphasising its democratic underpinnings. According to the EU, the

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 the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, underlined at the 8th Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (virtual, December 2020): ‘Our two sister continents can leapfrog to an economy where the energy we produce is renewable, affordable and accessible’ (European Commission 2020b). The European Commission describes the proposed Africa–EU Green Energy Initiative as complementary to the AfSEM and expects it to contribute to the development and integration of regional energy markets (European Commission 2020a, 6). The EU plans to deliberate on the Global Gateway and the Africa–EU Green Energy Initiative at the 6th EUAU Summit (Brussels, Belgium, February 2022).

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).

The Chinese government and the AU have recently further institutionalised their cooperation. In December 2020, the chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, He Lifeng, and the chairperson of the AUC, Faki, signed the Cooperation Plan between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the African Union on Jointly Promoting the Building of the Belt and Road Initiative. In January 2021, the head of China’s mission to the AU, Ambassador Liu Yuxi, explicated that

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.

The 8th Ministerial Conference of the FOCAC (Dakar, Senegal, 29–30 November 2021) reiterated the central importance of infrastructure in Sino-African development cooperation (see Ulf Engel, this Yearbook, chapter 11). As Chinese loan financing for infrastructure has significantly decreased in the past years as a result of concerns over growing debt sustainability, the FOCAC’s Dakar Action Plan (2022–2024)

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, the SAATM, and the integrated e-economy, are explicitly mentioned (ibid., §3.2.3).

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 AUDANEPAD.

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 AUEU Summit (Brussels, Belgium, February 2022) can be expected to give first indications of how AUEU 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.

References

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Literature

  • Carmody, Pádraig, Ian Taylor, and Tim Zajontz 2022. ‘China’s Spatial Fix and “Debt Diplomacy” in Africa: Constraining Belt or Road to Economic Transformation?Canadian Journal of African Studies 56 (1): 5777.

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    • Export Citation
  • Large, Daniel 2021. China and Africa: The New Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Lisinge, Robert Tama and Meine Pieter van Dijk 2022. ‘Regional Transport Infrastructure Programmes in Africa: What Factors Influence Their Performance?’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 56 (1): 99121.

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  • Schindler, Seth and J. Miguel Kanai 2021. ‘Getting the Territory Right: Infrastructure-Led Development and the Re-Emergence of Spatial Planning Strategies’, Regional Studies 55 (1): 4051.

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Websites

1

AU News Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.

2

Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 7 February 2021.

3

AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.

4

The Task Force is composed of representatives from the AUC, AUDANEPAD, the AfDB, and UNECA.

5

The East African [Nairobi], 3 January 2022.

6

See also Reuters [New York NY], 19 February 2021. URL: <https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2AJ0TG?__twitter_impression=true&s=03>.

7

AU News Release [Addis Ababa], 31 October 2021.

8

AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 9 November 2021.

9

Ibid.

10

AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 3 June 2021.

11

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).

12

Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.

13

Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.

14

Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 5 May 2021.

15

Virtual PIDA Information Centre [Addis Ababa], 21 January 2021.

16

AU Press Release [Addis Ababa], 6 July 2021.

17

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

18

The White House, Press Release [Washington DC], 12 June 2021.

19

The East African [Nairobi], 27 November 2021.

20

European Commission Press Release [Brussels], 1 December 2021.

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    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • European Commission 2020b. ‘Speech: Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans at the 8th Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment’. Brussels: European Commission. URL: <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/timmermans/announcements/executive-vice-president-frans-timmermans-8th-special-session-african-ministerial-conference_en> (accessed: 30 June 2022).

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  • FOCAC 2021. ‘Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Dakar Action Plan (2022–2024)’. Beijing: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. URL: <https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/2649_665393/202112/t20211202_10461183.html> (accessed: 30 June 2022).

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    • Export Citation
  • Liu, Yuxi 2021. ‘China-Africa Joint Contribution of the BRI Is on the Momentum’. Addis Ababa: Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the African Union. URL: <https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/cgauchm//eng/sghd_1/t1846707.htm> (accessed: 30 June 2022).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • PR China 2021. ‘China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals’. Beijing: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 26 November. URL: <https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/2649_665393/202111/t20211126_10453904.html> (accessed: 30 June 2022).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • UNECA 2021. ‘African Policymakers Urged to Make 30 Km/h Streets the Norm to Save Lives’, 20 May. Addis Ababa: UN Economic Commission for Africa. URL: <https://www.uneca.org/stories/african-policymakers-urged-to-make-30-km/h-streets-the-norm-to-save-lives> (accessed: 30 June 2022)

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Carmody, Pádraig, Ian Taylor, and Tim Zajontz 2022. ‘China’s Spatial Fix and “Debt Diplomacy” in Africa: Constraining Belt or Road to Economic Transformation?Canadian Journal of African Studies 56 (1): 5777.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Gil, Nuno, Anne Stafford and Innocent Musonda (eds.) 2019. Duality by Design: The Global Race to Build Africa’s Infrastructure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Large, Daniel 2021. China and Africa: The New Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Lisinge, Robert Tama and Meine Pieter van Dijk 2022. ‘Regional Transport Infrastructure Programmes in Africa: What Factors Influence Their Performance?’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 56 (1): 99121.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Medinilla, Alfonso, Bruce Byiers, and Karim Karaki 2019. ‘African Power Poolsregional Energy, National Power’. Brussels: European Centre for Development Policy Management (= Discussion paper 244).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Schindler, Seth and J. Miguel Kanai 2021. ‘Getting the Territory Right: Infrastructure-Led Development and the Re-Emergence of Spatial Planning Strategies’, Regional Studies 55 (1): 4051.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wethal, Ulrike 2019. ‘Building Africa’s Infrastructure: Reinstating History in Infrastructure Debates’, Forum for Development Studies 46 (3): 473499.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Zajontz, Tim 2022. ‘Debt, Distress, Dispossession: Towards a Critical Political Economy of Africa’s Financial Dependency’, Review of African Political Economy 49 (171): 173183.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Zajontz, Tim and Ian Taylor 2021. ‘Capitalism and Africa’s (Infra)Structural Dependency: A Story of Spatial Fixes and Accumulation by Dispossession’. In A.D. Cooper and E. Oritsejafor (eds.) Africa and the Global System of Capital Accumulation. Abingdon: Routledge, 190213.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
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