Momentum builds as heavyweights get behind infrastructure

The momentum behind a multinational effort to build the infrastructure that can transform sub-Saharan African economies is finding its expression in a welter of announcements about new initiatives and projects. As well as giving substance to claims that long-stalled Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa projects can mobilise the huge resources they need to be built, these initiatives – which now include the Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), unveiled at the IMF/World Bank Group (WBG) annual meetings – are, in essence, the product of years of analysis of why ‘transformational’ projects from the Grand Inga dam downwards have never left the drawing board.