Abstract:
During the last fifteen years, it has become apparent that capacity building is an important ingredient for sustainable
development. In this regard, governments in Africa rank capacity building for infrastructure delivery amongst the top
priorities for promoting sustainable development.
A large share of Africa’s infrastructure is domestically financed, with the central government budget being the main
driver of infrastructure investment. It is, therefore, important to strengthen the finance and technical capacity of public
sector officials to effectively manage the preparation, structuring, implementation and operations and maintenance of
infrastructure.
In the quest to improve the infrastructure delivery capacity of public sector officials, this dip stick survey has assessed
and highlighted gaps in terms of limited working knowledge of financial instruments, products and services such as
viability gap finance and partial risk guarantees, as well as different financing models including fixed and floating
interest rate borrowing from DFIs. All officials interviewed confirmed the importance of prioritizing finance training in
the areas of selection, preparation and appraisal of investment projects.
