The African Union’s NEPAD Agency has said that for Africa to truly become the next growth pole, where its citizens generate wealth, private enterprise interests and public sector inputs have to complement each other.

Speaking at the opening of an Expert Group Meeting on Financing Infrastructure, in the Zambian Capital Lusaka NEPAD Chief Executive Officer Dr Ibrahim Mayaki said if Africa is to effectively participate and reach its true economic potential, it will require a level of investment in infrastructure that goes beyond the capacity of governments or bilateral and multilateral donor money.

The Lusaka meeting has brought together infrastructure experts from the business, government institutions, and international development agencies, to brain storm and plan for a high level Summit early next year - a multi-stakeholder platform which will devise ways of Africa using its own money and other resources for development.

The Dakar Financing Summit on Africa’s Infrastructure will be crucial for galvanising Africa’s influential leaders from government, industry and finance to accelerate investment into infrastructure. Co-organised by the Government of Senegal, NEPAD, and other partners the Summit will promote regional infrastructure projects and a call for domestic resources to fund them.

“We are challenged to look inward in our development processes on how we use Africa’s own resources. This will deepen the private-public partnership which is crucial to growing our economy,” said Mr Said Adejumobi , Sub-regional Director for UN Economic Commission for Africa’s.

The overriding intention is for Africa to own and drive its continental agenda utilising its financial resources to deliver the much-desired socio-economic transformation. Essentially, Domestic Resource Mobilization (DRM) forms a key pillar of the African Union’s strategy for the next fifty (50) years and is pivotal to the successful implementation of the second decade of NEPAD.

Assistant Secretary General of COMESA, Ambassador Nagla El-Hussain outlined the status and progress of projects in the east and southern region, such as he Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya rail network aimed to realise the Cape to Cairo project.