Collective action on investment is needed to raise the quality of the African road network. This was one of the recommendations at the official opening ceremony of the 21st General Assembly of the Association of African Road Maintenance Funds (AFERA) that took place Monday in Abidjan the Ivorian capital.
Ivory Coast: Summit coordinates road maintenance investment and strategy
centre: Robert Beugré Mambé, Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 14/05/2024
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The event with the theme “Towards sustainable financing of road funds for better maintenance of the African road network”, was presided over by the Ivorian Prime Minister Robert Beugré Mambé.
''It's to have a positioning that allows all African countries to have at least one road maintenance fund that meets the standards. Why not one like Côte d'Ivoire's? asks Ésaie Moussa Aubin, President of ARMFA
"In other words, positioning at the level of the African Union. Decisions can be taken hard enough to say that from now on all member countries will have a road maintenance fund of such and such a standard”, Aubin added.
With an investment of over 5 million dollars for a linear road network of 82,000 km, Ivory Coast was described as one of the African countries with a vast road network.
Prime Minister Robert Beugré Mambé: ''Côte d'Ivoire's road network comprises 5,000 km of urban roads and just over 200,000 km of unclassified rural roads. These dense road networks. represent 40% of the West African Economic and Monetary Union road network. This gives Ivory Coast one of the highest road coverage rates in the sub-region" according to Robert Beugré Mambé, Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire.
About 55 percent of roads in Africa are paved according to a 2023 report released by the Africa Investment Forum.
Experts say the continent's road infrastructure deficit creates increased production and transaction costs that must be addressed to scale opportunities.