NAIROBI, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Plans are underway to create an infrastructure development fund to accelerate expansion of existing networks across Africa, an African Union (AU) envoy said on Thursday.
Raila Odinga, the AU's high representative for infrastructure development in Africa, said the continent's infrastructure has been lagging behind and that about 60 percent of Africa's population don't have access of modern roads and railways.
His office will convene a meeting next week "to seek how sovereign funds lying idle in African countries can be unlocked to promote infrastructure development within the continent," Odinga told the closing ceremony of the first validation meeting in Nairobi of African Integrated High Speed Railway Network Project.
"Five percent of the funds can complete the missing links and fund road and railway networks before we borrow money from overseas donors," Odinga told experts attending the two-day forum on how to connect the continent by a high-speed railway network.
He advised them to avoid spending several years doing feasibility studies because the same have already been done and awaiting implementation, adding that the arena of feasibility studies has become an 'industry' in Africa.
