Covid-19 caught Africa in a state of poor infrastructure readiness. Infrastructure required for business continuation within the framework of the new normal was either missing or obsolete and hence people lost their jobs and economies suffered. This is an opportunity to urgently re-assess the needs of our continent and become more resilient to crisis situations. We need to quickly learn now, from this pandemic, and thoroughly appreciate that it is not the last crisis we will face.
The lessons have been varied but have all exposed the critical importance of infrastructure planning and readiness. Structures such as airports and urban public transport systems saw declining use whereas hospitals and telecommunications infrastructure struggled from increased pressure. With different challenges requiring different interventions, the Covid-19 pandemic brought the resilience of Africa’s infrastructure into question. Much of this gap in resilience has been seen in two specific sectors, transport and telecommunications.
The World Health Organisation lauded South Korea for flattening the Covid-19 curve through rigorous testing leading to the understanding that testing is critical in the fight against the pandemic. The reality on the African continent is such that experts indicate that we may have reached our testing limits due to severe logistical constraints, among other problems. Urban centres have benefitted from an improved influx in testing kits in countries such as Rwanda and South Africa but delivery of these testing kits to more remote areas has been inefficient. Roads are poor and connectivity is not good enough to support modern interventions. The lesson is that Africa needs to invest in key transport infrastructure to enable efficient reactions and delivery of required resources in times of crisis. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) should be integrated into our transport infrastructure, with Fourth Industrial Revolution interventions tapped to deliver required resources promptly.
According to the World Bank, food prices in sub-Saharan Africa have spiked by between 60% and 80% since the pandemic began. In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo where food harvests were good, the problem is not the availability of food but the ability to get it to market. In East Africa, recent floods and locust infestations have necessitated medicines and humanitarian relief to be delivered to remote areas. These are other challenges that demonstrate the ripple effect of unreliable transport infrastructure. The human cost is too great. The need to prepare for the next crisis through improved transport and supporting infrastructure has never been so apparent as it is now.
The importance of digital and telecommunications infrastructure has been highlighted as countries deal with Covid-19. In Africa, we battle the highest telecommunications costs in the world and the poorest rural telecommunications infrastructure. On one end, the pandemic has created pressure on this infrastructure where people working from home have increased demand where it was traditionally low. The infrastructure requires updating and modernising to respond to growing needs.
The lessons from the crisis have not always been bleak. There are positive examples on the continent where robust infrastructure has been used to tame the pandemic. In Senegal, health and manufacturing infrastructure has been used to start producing USD1 testing kits. In Ghana, good telecommunications infrastructure has been the reason behind efficient contact tracing and has prevented a complete shutdown. Rwanda, Uganda and Botswana have similarly utilised robust infrastructure systems to keep markets and the agricultural economy functioning.
Transport and telecommunications infrastructure are crucial for Africa given our geo-political importance. Between 2013 and 2019 alone, 320 embassies opened across the continent. This interest bodes well for a continent whose population will reach 1.5 billion by 2025 – more than China. Building Africa’s resilience and understanding how African countries can leverage off their own opportunity as a growth market, means that government interventions and policies to create industries of the future will be crucial in driving post-Covid economic growth. With Africa holding 70% of the world’s manganese reserves, used in steel and more recently in battery applications, what interventions and possible fiscal changes will be made to leverage this opportunity? How can Africa build its resilience for the future? Planning.
The agility and flexibility of our infrastructure systems in their response to Covid-19 and beyond have been laid bare, revealing our potential, or lack thereof, to adapt to shocks and unexpected emergencies. Infrastructure needs to be agile so that physical structures and governing processes can adapt and transform services as requirements change, especially in times of crisis. Agility and flexibility are preconditions for resilience. The resilience of our infrastructure systems is the result of the principles by which we design and operate our physical assets. This crisis is teaching us that the planning and deployment of infrastructure needs greater attention to questions of resilience.
Given that infrastructure is not built overnight especially given Africa’s intricacies, it requires intensive planning for future eventualities. From conception through to delivery and integration, many decisions and trade-offs need to be made in what can often be an uncertain environment. Taking into account climate change, improved infrastructure isn’t just essential for crises but should offer numerous benefits even in our "new-normal” times. Therefore, infrastructure investment remains key to Africa’s resilience and growth trajectory.