Africa has to provide employment opportunities for its youth if it is to harness their potential and contribute to the desired economic growth outlined in the vision of Agenda 2063.

The call was made by officials from the African Union (AU), the NEPAD Agency and the African Development Bank (AfDB) at the opening of the second annual Programme for Infrastructure Development (PIDA) week currently underway in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

This year’s gathering, organised under the theme, ‘Creating Jobs through Regional Infrastructure Development,’ has brought over 250 participants and stakeholders representing member states, private sectors, development partners and project owners.

PIDA is a multi-sectoral programme that covers the transport, energy, transboundary water and ICT industries. PIDA said it was “dedicated to facilitate continental integration in Africa through improved regional infrastructure”.

PIDA said its ‘PIDA Week’ was aimed at showcasing and validating the relevance of regional infrastructure projects and its impacts on the socio-economic development of Africa, particularly on job creation for the youth.

Elham MA Ibrahim, AU commissioner for infrastructure and energy, said that PIDA should play an important role in narrowing the gap between job creation and unemployment. “To that end, public decision-makers and private sector management are urged to actively undertake training and skills acquisition in infrastructure development, particularly in building roads, rail systems, power generation and power transmission systems in order to enable young Africans to be well prepared for the implementation of complex programmes such as PIDA.”

The week’s events intend to build on the achievement of the inaugural event held in 2015, reach out to the global infrastructure investor community, development finance institutions, export credit agencies, project sponsors (public and private) and governments.

NEPAD Agency CEO Ibrahim Assane Mayaki said that if Africa was to be successful in increasing the number of regional and domestic infrastructure projects and the impact they had, changes were needed in mind-set, policy pronouncements and programme implementation.

He also indicated that there was a need to continue with the positive streamlining of trans-boundary infrastructure projects.

“Africa stands to benefit from its critical human resources, the young people, who must be nurtured to enable their meaningful participation in national development efforts and I believe that infrastructure development is central to this,” Mayaki said.

The AfDB acting vice-president Stephan Nalletamby, said the programme was solid, sustainable and had attainable objectives for 2030.

“We have selected our destination and we are going to get there, as long as we can be assured of excellence in our infrastructure and total reliability in its implementation and operation on the ground,” Nalletamby said. “The PIDA programme is at the front of our thinking. We consider it to be critical for Africa’s integration agenda,” he added.

Nalletamby highlighted that PIDA has the unique feature of being the first African infrastructure development agenda, designed by Africans and fully owned and endorsed at the highest level by African Heads of State and Government. “So it has to succeed,” he said.

PIDA Week 2016 will also focus on reporting key achievements. A Progress Report was shared at the event which highlighted the need to de-risk infrastructure and projects to solicit interest from private sector investors as well as domestic and international investors.

The report also presented a candid review of the challenges and lessons learnt to ensure the continued accelerated implementation of such projects.