A consortium led by Mott MacDonald has been appointed as technical advisor to the Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (NEPAD-IPPF) by the African Development Bank (ADB), to support African stakeholders as they identify, assess and prioritise regional infrastructure projects on the continent. Mott MacDonald is working with fellow consultant Sofreco on the IPPF, part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Through the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, The African Union and NEPAD have achieved consensus among African states to focus their efforts on 51 transformational regional infrastructure programmes. These programmes guide the direction of the NEPAD-IPPF. NEPAD-IPPF was established to prepare high quality energy, water, transport and communications infrastructure projects for investment and construction. With funding from bilateral agencies and the ADB, NEPAD-IPPF provides grants to African governments, regional economic communities and other regional institutions in Africa. To date, it has leveraged over £30 million in funding to prepare infrastructure projects worth £900 million. Projects supported by NEPAD-IPPF include the rehabilitation and upgrading of the north-south corridor linking South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, a 1500MW hydropower plant in Mozambique, a dedicated African satellite aerial navigation system and improved access from landlocked countries to sea ports.

Mott MacDonald and Sofreco are working under a framework agreement to provide NEPAD- IPPF with the skills required to define projects, assess their feasibility, design them and structure them commercially.

WimVerheugt, Mott MacDonald’s project director, comments:

“Good quality infrastructure is vital to economic growth in any part of the world. NEPAD-IPPF is scaling up its activities to achieve rapid progress on high quality infrastructure that delivers strong economic return on investment.”