PRESENTATION By Dr. John E. Tambi Transport Infrastructure Expert and Coordinator of the Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative The NEPAD Planning & Coordinating Agency, Midrand, South Africa. At the 1 st PAERIP Workshop Cape Town, South Africa (Southern Sun Garden Court Eastern Boulevard Hotel) November 11, 2011.
Background: Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning, it is indeed an honour and certainly a privilege to be here with you this morning, and I don t take this opportunity lightly. Let me tell you a story about a group of engineers and scientists who were trying to measure the height of a pole. They gathered around the pole debating and discussing about the best way to measure the Height of the pole. While they were still discussing a lawyer came along on his way to work, and enquired about what the gathering was all about. He was told that the group was discussing and debating the best way to measure the height of the pole. The lawyer without blinking an eye, pull down the pole and used his tape measure to measure the Length of the pole. He then proudly said to the group, here is your answer, and it was really a piece of cake, and I really could not believe that with all your expertise you could not figure this out. The group of engineers and scientists looked at each other in amazement and shook their heads and said: no wonder he is a lawyer. Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen, this is exactly the fundamental problem that we as engineers, scientists and technicians are faced with. Here was a lawyer who genuinely believed that he has solved a problem that the engineers and scientists could not solve. As a matter of fact, the lawyer had only measured the length of the pole rather than its height. A height always has a reference point, for example ground-level, mean-sealevel, at grade level, etc., while a length does not. So often politicians and other non-technical officials honestly believe that they have solved a technical problem, and they accuse the engineers and scientists of taking too long to come up with answers. You will even hear some of them saying for example: we do not need feasibility studies, or any studies for that matter, these studies are costly and take too long, we should just go ahead and construct the road. The fact of the matter is that, they are always wrong, and the consequences of their solutions are always more costly by every measure. Science and technology are based on laws, logical reasoning and exact and accurate results, for example 2 plus 2 will
always equal 4 in any language, any culture, any region and any continent, in this world, there will never be a different answer, no matter how much you try. Introduction: Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, this morning I am supposed to talk about the: Importance of Research Infrastructures in Strengthening the Africa s S&T Agenda. However, before I do that, let me contextualize my presentation within the NEPAD experience so that you can better understand and appreciate what I am about to say. To do this, first I would like to give you a brief background of the NEPAD Vision and what NEPAD is all about. I will also talk about the NEPAD institutions and what they are supposed to do. I will present the various infrastructure initiatives and try to draw a correlation between these initiatives and the S&T agenda, and the impact thereof. Finally, I will try to justify the importance of research infrastructures in strengthening the Africa S&T Agenda. NEPAD: In the spirit of the African renaissance and with a renewed hope of optimism at the beginning of this millennium, NEPAD was ushered in as the Answer to all of Africa s problems with a host of (some may call them unrealistic ) expectations, and pride that Africa has finally found the answer to its daunting developmental challenges. Pride was certainly necessary and justified, because for the first time, Africans have conceptualized, developed and presented a continental plan that was to effectively address all its developmental challenges on a sustainable basis in the form of NEPAD. Today, ten years down the line, this optimism and pride seems to be wavering primarily because the expectations have not been realized and most importantly, because the animal called NEPAD has been misunderstood.
NEPAD The New Partnership for Africa s Development is a program of the African Union. It is a blueprint for Africa s development into the twentyfirst century. It is a vision of all that Africa can become. It is also a program of priority actions and a strategy to guide Africa s way forward. NEPAD provides a policy framework for a continent-wide holistic, socioeconomic renewal. The NEPAD founding document s overarching objectives are self-reliance, sub-regional and continental economic integration, economic growth and sustainable development. The fundamental objective of NEPAD is to promote sustainable development on the African continent, in a manner that embodies social, economic and environmental dimensions. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, in essence, NEPAD is all that Africa can become. Infrastructure Development in Africa: Cognizance of the fact that the NEPAD vision cannot be realized without infrastructure development on the continent, the NEPAD Secretariat in collaboration with the AUC, the ADB and the RECs developed the NEPAD Short-Term Action Plan (STAP) for Infrastructure development in 2002. STAP: The Short-Term Action plan was basically an amalgamation of all priority regional and continental infrastructure programs and projects of the RECs. Infrastructure in this case is defined as: Transport (with its attendant modes: road, air, sea, rail and pipeline), Energy, ICT and Water & Sanitation. There have been three reviews of the progress made in the implementation of the STAP programs and projects. The last review was done in 2010. In all 103 STAP projects were reviewed, and of these 16 projects have been fully completed and about 70% of the projects have progressed in some from or the other. AAP (African Action Plan) 2010-2015: The AU/NEPAD African Action Plan (AAP) is the defining statement of Africa s current priority programs and projects related to the promotion of regional and continental integration, anchored in NEPAD s Guiding Principles. The AU/NEPAD
African Action Plan (AAP) was originally conceived and developed in 2005/2006, in the drive to fast track the implementation of Africa s development and initiatives, including the MDGs. It consists, primarily, of the current priority programmes and projects with high potential impact on regional integration in Africa and requiring co-ordination at the continental level. The AAP was intended as a platform for dialogue with international and African partners, to raise resources for much needed public and private investments and to monitor and evaluate progress. The AAP was recently revised with the overarching objective of producing an AAP with buy-in from all stakeholders. PIDA (Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa) 2010-2040: PIDA is a continent-wide program to develop a vision, policies, strategies and a program with projects for the development of priority regional and continental infrastructure in transport, energy, trans-boundary water and ICT, up to the year 2040. In addition to policies and strategies, PIDA will also develop an infrastructure investment program covering the short, medium and long terms. This investment program will be built around priorities established by Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and shall include an implementation strategy and processes, including a priority action plan. PIDA Objectives: To enable African decision-makers to: Establish a strategic framework for the development of regional and continental infrastructure (Transport, Energy, Trans-boundary Water and, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) based on a development vision, strategic objectives and sector policies. Establish an infrastructure investment program (short, medium and long term) around priorities established by RECs, and Prepare an implementation strategy and processes including, in particular, a priority action plan. PIDA will be presented for adoption by the African head of States and Governments during the next AU summit in January 2012
The importance of Research Infrastructure: Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, form the infrastructure initiatives presented it is obvious that Africa has been very active in trying to address its infrastructure development since 2001. In addition, several other continental and regional infrastructure initiatives have been undertaken by Africa in the past, such as the Trans-Africa Highway, and others. According to the AICD study by the World Bank, the African road network corridors carry about US$ 200 billion in annual trade, and the road network is not more than 10,000KM. To provide meaningful level of continental connectivity, between 60,000km to 100,000km of regional roads are required. Fewer than 40% of rural Africans live within 2km of an allseason road, the lowest level of rural road accessibility in the developing world. Less than 10% of the continent s road network attracts traffic volumes in excess of 10,000 vehicles per day, the minimum required to make concession economically viable. The PIDA study is projecting a cost of $60 billion to address Africa s infrastructure needs for the first phase 2010-2020. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the fact is, all these past initiatives have not been very successful and they have not effectively contributed to the development of the continent. In addition, there is no guarantee that future initiatives will equally be successful. In my opinion, one of the major reasons for saying this is the fact that the Africa s S&T Agenda has never been part of the planning or the implementation process of the projects or programs emanating from these initiatives. Infrastructure programs and projects have been planned, design and implemented with little or no input from the S&T agenda, particularly what I will call the soft issues. For example, we spend a lot of time talking about regional integration and even implement projects based on regional integration such as roads, and pay little attention to border crossing issues, facilitation issues, etc. How can the physical infrastructure be effective when we have not addressed, the critical issues that will make it functional?
The paucity of data and the accuracy of the relevant data needed to plan and design some of these projects pose formidable challenges for Africa. For example, research on demographic shifts, trade flows, design standards, maintenance techniques, safety issues, construction materials, etc, are most often missing. Our planning has been mainly focused on the hard core engineering aspect of the projects, while the other pertinent issues such as those I have just mentioned are often ignored. Africa has the opportunity to leap-frog in terms of infrastructure development by learning from other regions and sharing and collaborating in research activities from these regions, as well as using best practices rather than re-inventing the wheel. For example, Africa started the TAH project in the 1970s with nine corridors and about a total of 53,000Km of road network. As of today 25% of the network is still a missing link and the design standards of those completed are not uniform or consistent. The Asian road network project started several years after that of Africa, but today it has 142,000Km completed road network and comprise of 62 member states with 12 of them land-locked. The Asian road network development program placed heavy reliance on an accurate database, road safety, minimum guidelines for construction and upgrading. The European road network was motivated by the ambition to rebuild the road infrastructure after World War II, and supported by research and a database. Today, it is the most successful road network in the world. I believe that Africa now has the opportunity to learn from Europe through this program. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, basically what I am trying to say is that, there is now a compelling need for a coordinated and integrated approach to research in infrastructure development in Africa, consistent with Africa s S*T Agenda. Infrastructure development in Africa cannot be successful and sustainable without the active engagement of Africa s S&T. Since this is the inaugural and first workshop of the PAERIP, I have no doubt that it will set the minimum benchmark for the many workshops that will follow. Most importantly, I believe that these workshops will provide the platform and opportunity to develop the framework for the effective
integration of Africa s S&T Agenda into the overall planning and implementation of infrastructure programs and projects on the continent. They will also provide the opportunity to map out the strategies for promoting African and European research infrastructure partnerships, and to embrace the lessons learnt and best practices in infrastructures research. Let me now take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this workshop and to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for their invitation, and to be part of this workshop. I would like to remind you all of the words of one of the greatest American Presidents, President John Kennedy, who said that: our task is not to fix the blame of the past but to set the course for the future. I believe that this workshop will begin to set the course for the future. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you all for your time, and I wish you all a very successful and productive workshop. May God bless you All.