AFC report provides sober view of African infrastructure

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In May, the Africa Finance Corporation released what is probably the most comprehensive and thorough overview of the state of African infrastructure across a number of critical sectors and poles of activity. Filled with nuggets of datasets and statistics, The State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2024 outlines the pressure points and opportunities across the sector value chain. We spoke with Dr Rita Babihuga-Nsanze (opposite), one of the report’s main authors, ahead of the UN General Assembly.

The Africa Finance Corporation’s report on the state of Africa’s overall infrastructure development points out the vital importance of this sector to the continent’s economic transformation but decries what it terms insufficient support by both the public and private sectors.

Investments in this area are critical for building a network of physical infrastructure assets, encompassing both economic infrastructure (such as ports, railways, roads, and airports) and social infrastructure (like schools and hospitals). Despite the demonstrated link between a country’s capital stock and improvements in productivity and living standards, the report shows how Africa’s total capital stock has seen minimal growth over the past three decades. 

The report details how the annual growth rate of Africa’s capital stock averaged only 1-2% in the 1990s and has been 2-4% since the start of the millennium, in stark contrast to China’s consistent 10% growth in the area during the same periods. 

Although the real value of Africa’s accumulated capital stock has gradually increased, it remains significantly low at just $10.5bn, compared to nearly $64bn in China by 2019. While China’s total capital stock was 0.47 times less than Africa’s in 1960, it surpassed Africa’s by 1996-1997 and experienced a rapid increase in line with the country’s economic surge from the early 2000s. By 2018, China’s.