Description
The African and global business community at their first gathering of the Continental Business Network (CBN) commended African political leaders for their steadfast commitment to the development and finance of African infrastructure, and for their essential support to the CBN for its role in engaging the private sector on the investments and financing of infrastructure programmes such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA).
Partners
African and Global Private sectors and firms, Africa Investor, DNA Economics, NEPAD Agency, African Union Commission, Africa Development Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African’s Regional Economic Communities strategic partners: UNOSSA, GIZ, EU, JICA including other development organizations
Targets
Serve as a key private sector engagement platform for NEPAD and the African Union Commission (AUC) to engage the private sector on PIDA and infrastructure projects;
Build capacity in private sector firms so they can more successfully bid for infrastructure-related contracts;
Provide guidance to African government agencies responsible for infrastructure development on ways to engage development partners on required inputs at a project level to achieve “bankability” (e.g., needed support in project development to cover costs of financial advisory, technical studies, staff, etc.; de-risking through project legal structure, ownership structure, and contracts with vendors; risk mitigation solutions for construction, performance, credit, political, off-take, currency; etc.);
Indicators
1) The outcomes of this CBN Launch will be presented to African Heads of State and Government at the upcoming African Union Heads of State Summit this June in South Africa. This communique will be presented as a summary of the CBN Launch.
2) The CBN Secretariat will leverage the new financing framework to be advanced by UN member states in Addis Ababa at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development from 13-16 July, 2015 as the foundation for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
3) Starting immediately, the NEPAD Secretariat will start to formulate a work plan, working with private sector leaders. The work plan will inform the Agenda of the next CBN meeting during the January 2016 Heads of State Summit.
4) CBN private sector leaders will advance critical action items at the follow-up roundtable with Heads of State at the Ai – NEPAD – AUC CEO Private Sector Forum during the AU Heads of State Summit in January 2016 in Addis Ababa.
Resources
NEPAD Agency together with Partners are supporting the initial activities of the CBN
Timeframe
Next CBN Meeting with Heads of State: We look forward to working in support of these critical objectives and meeting at the Ai-AUC-NEPAD CEO Investment Summit in January 2016.