This document (Draft 003, 22 October 2020) presents a common African strategy for partnerships to develop the continent’s regional infrastructure. It also provides a framework to assess the impact of these partnerships. The notion of partnerships expresses an ideological aspiration of international solidarity in the development cause and implies mutual support for mutual benefit.

In this context, African countries and organisations are cooperating among themselves and with countries and organisations from other regions of the world to develop the continent’s regional infrastructure networks. These partnerships are voluntary arrangements that are envisaged to combine and leverage the financial and non-financial resources of partners in support of the continent’s infrastructure development. Africa enters into these partnerships for several reasons including the desire to advocate for the implementation of its projects, exchange information and undertake joint research with partners, build the continent’s capacity in infrastructure development, and to have a platform for consultation and coordination with development partners. Such partnerships for infrastructure development are in line with Agenda 2063 Aspiration 7 of “An Africa as a strong, united, resilient and influential global player and partner.”

Table of contents:

Section 2 presents the background to Africa’s regional infrastructure development, the mandate to develop
a common strategy for cooperating with partners to improve the continent’s infrastructure network and the
context in which the mandate was provided.

Section 3 explores Africa’s vision for its infrastructure sector and outlines the continent’s development principles that apply to regional infrastructure development.

Section 4 discusses the challenges to develop a common position for strategic infrastructure partnerships
and approaches to overcome these challenges.

Section 5 examines the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on Africa’s infrastructure development with a focus on the role of development partners in addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic and harnessing the opportunities that it presents.

Section 6 presents an accountability framework for assessing the benefits of cooperation in infrastructure
development.

Section 7 recommends actions to operationalise the principles presented in Section 3 and for
the effective implementation of the accountability framework.

Section 8 concludes the document.

The CAP can be downloaded here.