The NEPAD Agency today presented the role of the Continental Business Network (CBN) in facilitating and accelerating Infrastructure Project Financing. The presentation was done during the Infrastructure Project Finance Roundtable which took place on the margins of the 2nd PIDA Week.

Speaking on the CBN and the role thereof, the NEPAD Head of Regional Integration, Infrastructure and Trade Programme, Mr Symerre Grey-Johnson reminded participants that the CBN was initially set up to address early stage project preparation , the lack of necessary finance in terms ofproject preparation , financing mega infrastructure projects and the need for private sector to participate in PIDA.  It is because of these core objectives, he said, that CBN has developed a CBN framework and to address the logistical aspects of infrastructure, Move Africa was launched. He highlighted that the NEPAD Agency, through CBN willalso be launching a renewable energy access programme

“We cannot afford to lose private sector interest in infrastructure development.

So, within CBN, we are continuously exploring different ways to entice private sector investment and continue to assess our work to establish if we can go into other areas of sourcing financing. It is for this reason that we produced the De-risking Infrastructure Investment in Africa report which includes the proposal for pension funds investments in infrastructure development”

The Roundtable was mainly organised to explore opportunities for attracting more resources to infrastructure project preparation and development. The platform also aimed at developing smart partnerships in co-financing to leverage existing resources and capacities; facilitating anenabling environment for private sector financing of infrastructure projects; de-risking of complex cross-border infrastructure projects to make them attractive to financiers and targeted Technical Assistance (TA) support to recipients/beneficiaries to accelerate project delivery.

Domestic resource mobilization for sustainable project preparation and development in the long-term was also discussed. 

To achieve infrastructure demand, the experts agreed that there is a need to strengthen capacity in terms of infrastructure project preparation.

Source: NEPAD