OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2016. The NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility, NEPAD-IPPF, has concluded a two-day workshop that brought together over 20 staff members, representatives from the African Development Bank’s Departments of Transport, ICT, Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Resources Mobilisation and External Finance. 

The two-day seminar, held in Abidjan, was also attended by other AfDB Infrastructure Specialists in energy from field offices covering Zambia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Angola, and was aimed at defining modalities for improved delivery aligned to the new NEPAD-IPPF Strategic Business Plan (SBP) covering the five-year period 2016-2020. The SBP seeks to increase the stock of well-prepared bankable infrastructure projects across Africa which can attract financing

The first day of the retreat focused on translating the newly approved five-year Strategic Business Plan (SBP), into actionable goals. Under the new SBP, NEPAD-IPPF seeks to prepare between 60 to 80 regional infrastructure projects in energy, transport, trans-boundary water and ICT with reparation costs of between US\\$150 million to US\\$250 million over the five-year period and this will require additional resources from existing and potential donors.

NEPAD-IPPF, supports African governments, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and African infrastructure-related institutions such as Power Pools and to prepare bankable, investment-ready projects that can attract financing for implementation.

Since inception, NEPAD-IPPF has awarded 67 grants for preparation of regional infrastructure projects in Energy, Water, Transport and ICT, resulting in investment financing of over US\\$ 7.78 billion, thusresponding directly to Africa’s integration and development efforts.

Discussions at the retreat also focused on strengthening internal capacity of NEPAD-IPPF with new working clusters based on defined roles and value addition through enhanced collaboration and synergies to improve operational effectiveness, efficient delivery and enhanced interface with clients. The four clusters are Project Delivery; Financing and Partnerships; Portfolio Management; and Communications and Outreach. As a means of augmented its capacity, NEPAD-IPPF has recently recruited four new staff. These are, Alex Ndiku Mbaraga, Project Preparation Specialist in charge of transport projects; Karine Mbengue-Maing?, Resource Mobilisation Specialist; Monde Nyambe, Infrastructure Project Finance Specialist and Binny Prabhakar, Project Preparation Specialist in charge of energy projects. The new additions to the existing NEPAD-IPPF team is expected to further enhance the operational effectiveness of the Facility so that it is better able to respond to the needs of its primary clients and ultimate beneficiaries, the African countries.

“Bringing together our staff and partners gave us the opportunity to take part in stimulating conversations and ensure the New Strategic Business Plan is delivered into actionable goals with key performance indicators,” said Shem Simuyemba, Manager for NEPAD-IPPF, who added: “A project is not a project until it is bankable and can attract financing for implementation. Our ambition for the next five years is to accelerate our project delivery, strengthen our performance and results.”

NEPAD-IPPF is a multi-donor Special Fund hosted by the African Development Bank and supported by a number of donors, including Canada, Germany, the UK, Spain, Norway and Denmark.