AIDI 2020

The African Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) is a report published by the African Development Bank that tracks the progress of Africa's various countries in their development of critical infrastructure. Analysis is also provided for different regions of Africa. Find the full reading here (p. 1- 6 six; you are not required to read the annexes): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1suLUrFoxuvBgSLXGuTASPm4BYGEKudOH/view

Introduction

"The development of infrastructure in Africa is critical for fostering econo-mic growth and improving the living standards of Africans. It contributes significantly to human development, poverty reduction, and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Investment in infrastructure accounts for over half of the improvements in economic growth in Africa witnessed over the last decade and has the potential to contribute much more, given a conducive environment.

Constraining factors arising from the Covid-19 pandemic that may curb infrastructure development going forward include: heightened investor risk aversion, which has spurred unprecedented capital outflows from the region; significantly increased government debt burdens due to the need to focus on the health crisis and to instigate policies to mitigate short-

term economic damage to the economy; weaker external demand particularly for oil, which is the backbone of economies such as Nigeria; as well as a dramatic fall in global and inter-regional travel and tourism receipts.

In this new and unprecedented lands-cape, the need to ramp up infrastructure development has become ever more urgent. For example, the importance of safe and readily accessible water sources, as well as improved sanitation,

are prerequisites for containing and defeating the spread of the pandemic. Water and sanitation is one of the four components of the Infrastructure sector.

The decline in the use of transport (including buses, cars and airplanes)

worldwide during the pandemic, largely also due to the lockdowns, has led to steep declines in oil revenues

and to tourism generally, on which a large number of African countries rely.

Transport and power are the other Infrastructure components that will require policy reform and investment to secure long-term growth recovery.

Given the Covid-19 crisis, it is fitting that Infrastructure development across Africa remains a central pillar of the

African Development Bank’s mission. Indeed, it is articulated as such in the Bank’s High 5s transformative agenda, covering the period 2015–2025.

As part of its infrastructure development efforts, the Bank launched the Africa Infrastructure Knowledge Pro-

gram (AIKP), with its own dedicated Portal, to improve the availability of statistical information on infrastructure

development across the continent. A core aim is to assist individual countries in benchmarking the relative performance of their infrastructure sectors and in formulating their own country-specific strategies in the light of regional experience.

The AIKP allows an improved evaluation of the collective efforts to meet Africa’s infrastructure needs by establishing a base-line of the current situation across the continent.

This brief presents the latest information on progress made by African countries using data collected by the Bank un-

der its AIKP initiative. It also discusses the reasons behind the latest trends.

The first edition of the brief was conducted in 2013, the second in 2016 and the third in 2018. The present bulletin

covers the period 2000–2020 and monitors the status and progress of infrastructure development across the conti-

nent. The update presents selected indicators that comprise the Index’s infrastructure components, namely: (i)transport; (ii) power; (iii) ICT; and (iv) water and sanitation.

The AIKP program aims to provide an effective and sustainable platform for data collection and analysis on Africa’s infrastructure sectors. The Africa Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) serves three key objectives, namely: (i) to monitor and evaluate the status and progress of infrastructure development across the continent; (ii) to assist in resource allocation within the framework of ADF replenishments; and (iii) to contribute to policy dialogue within the Bank and between the Bank, African countries, and development partners. The AIDI data is generated annually and used to inform the annual performance-based allocation of African Development Fund (ADF)resources among eligible African countries.

It also aims to institutionalize infrastructure data collection in Africa by mainstreaming infrastructure statistics in the work programs of National Statistical Agencies. The program also generates information on investment needs across countries and sectors, which is critical for informing private and public sector investment decisions, including Bank-managed support in African countries. The AIDI’s methodological basis and the background and rationale for its development are expounded in Annex C. A revision of the original methodology is currently underway as more data are collected under the auspices of AIKP."

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