The insufficient infrastructure on the African continent has been identified as one of the major factors inhibiting accelerated economic and social development. Africa requires about $93 billion yearly to address the continent’s infrastructure such as water, transport, ICT and energy, and as much as half of that amount is required to address Africa’s debilitating energy needs, a new report has said.

According to a press statement issued by the World Bank and copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, the report titled, Africa’s Infrastructure: A time for Transformation which is an in-depth assessment of Africa’s infrastructure also indicated that the global economic crisis is likely to arrest growth and reduce the funds available for infrastructure.

The report noted that the lack of electricity, water, roads and ICT —cuts national economic growth by two percentage points every year and reduces productivity by as much as 40%.

The study which looked at 24 countries across the continent indicated that to close the infrastructure gap with other parts of the world, meet the Millennium Development Goals, and achieve national development targets in Africa within 10 years, an annual spending of $93 billion would be required. This estimate is more than double what was originally thought.

The report also noted that this estimate is still short of what China allocated to infrastructure during the last 20 years, which only in terms of capital investment was the equivalent to 15% of its GDP.

According to the findings of the report, fragile states face the most daunting burden of meeting the spending needs for infrastructure; to catch-up on infrastructure over the next decade fragile states would need to devote more than a third of their GDP to infrastructure development.

The conundrum, the report noted is that countries with the greatest infrastructure needs are often the countries that are least attractive to investors. Many African countries, particularly fragile states, have taken longer to catch up on infrastructure and have considered lower-cost technologies.

The report argues therefore that urgent action is needed, especially as the global financial crisis further underscores the need for a massive effort to overhaul Africa’s infrastructure.

Access to energy the report said is critical for economic growth and poverty alleviation; adding that no country in the world has developed its economy  without abundant energy supplies.

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Today, chronic power shortages plague 30 African countries and only one in four Africans has access to electricity, it added.

The entire installed generation capacity of 48 Sub Saharan African countries is 68 gigawatts, no more than Spain’s. Firms in many African countries indicate that the largest obstacle to doing business is the power constraint. Outside of South Africa, power consumption is barely one percent of the level in high income countries, the report said.

Despite these daunting challenges though, over the last few years Africa has benefitted from some significant improvements in infrastructure. The report noted that over 50% of Africans lived in range of a GSM mobile phone signal in 2006 and five African countries have already met the millennium targets for universal water access and 12 others are on-track to do so; and around 80% of Africa’s main road network is in good or fair condition.

While this is a positive story, it is only part of the whole story.

According to the report only one in three rural Africans has access to an all-season road; more than 20% of the population of Cameroon, Mauritania, Niger, Tanzania and Ghana must travel more than two kilometers to their primary water supply.

The study found that Africans pay twice as much for basic services as people elsewhere in the world; and a monthly basket of prepaid mobile telephone services costs $12 in Africa but only $2 in South Asia.

Improving the operating efficiency of power utilities through reforms at the institutional level however, would save Africa $2.7 billion a year— a savings that the report described as a significant contribution.

Presently, less than 90 percent of charges billed to customers are actually collected by utilities, compared with 100 percent for a well-run utility.