The 13th edition of the African Transport Infrastructure Forum (FAI 2021) will be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on April 8 and 9, 2021. The meeting will give rise to a substantive debate on the infrastructural needs of the sub-region, the development models and mode of financing.
A second edition in Central Africa after that of Brazzaville in January 2020, the next forum intends to support the development of transport infrastructure in the community space, in connection with the agreement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which has officially entered into force this January.
The 2021 FAI, which will bring together decision-makers, public and private partners (PPP), will take place in a hybrid format: face-to-face and virtual. The organizers reassure the maximum presence of 250 people in Yaoundé, rigorously respecting the health measures recommended by the WHO and in virtual retransmission giving the opportunity to thousands of participants around the world to follow this edition live and to interact with participants and speakers.
It must be admitted that when it comes to transport infrastructure, the continent has considerable challenges to overcome and the gap continues to grow between the ambitious visions of States and their capacities to implement them. Africa will therefore need to rethink existing development models in order to cope with limited infrastructural capacities.
The participants in this continental meeting will discuss the need to change the paradigm; the thorny issue of funding and the notion of risk; the central role of innovation and digitalization and the challenges of rehabilitation, upgrading and maintenance; the importance of PPP models.
“Central Africa: transport infrastructure, between vision and action” is the theme of this 2021 edition. Indeed, since its creation in 2008, the forum has been working for the development of efficient transport infrastructure. It is a conference that brings together governments, key players in the public and private sectors as well as all stakeholders, all in the spirit of debate and the exchange of experiences between the countries of the region.
