CoST was recently invited to participate in a roundtable meeting on ‘Strategic Infrastructure: African Context’ in Addis Ababa. The meeting considered project preparation processes, local industry development and innovative public private partnership models. Also involved in the discussions were Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, Minister of Economic Planning of Nigeria and Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida, Head of Infrastructure & Urban Development Industries at the World Economic Forum.

CoST was represented by its Vice Chairman Professor George Ofori who said after the meeting: “the World Economic Forum recognises that investing in infrastructure and services is key to Africa’s development. It also recognises that improving transparency and accountability in the delivery of infrastructure, through initiatives such as CoST, is vital to improving the value for money obtained from those investments. The need for transparency in procurement and contract administration of infrastructure projects was one of the major conclusions of the meeting.”