Shareholders from Africa50, a continental investment platform that seeks to bridge Africa’s infrastructure gaps, are meeting in Kigali to take stock of progress made in priority sectors.
The representatives from 27 African shareholder countries will also discuss how to increase investment in cross-border infrastructure in the energy, transport and information technology.
The meeting comes just two days after African Heads of State launched the African Continental Free Trade Area which seeks to create a single African market.
Poor infrastructure has been identified as one of the bottle necks to intra-African trade.
Africa’s annual infrastructure funding gap currently stands at 108 billion US Dollars, causing a 2% GDP loss on the continent.
Africa50 is seeking innovative ways to help African governments fund those projects. The Kigali meeting will take stock of the five projects that are already underway. They include power plants in Senegal, Egypt and Cameroon, an innovation city in Kigali and a rail linking the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo.
The meeting will also discuss tech-based infrastructure, which will help create more jobs on the continent.
