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You are cordially invited to the upcoming NEPAD/SADC Infrastructure Projects Conference on 8 August 2008, at the Sandton Sun Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa. The theme of the event will focus on “Enhancing Regional Integration”.
The previous NEPAD Projects Conference held in 8-9 October 2007 constituted an integral part of ongoing efforts to mobilise the private sector to participate more actively in infrastructure development in Africa. The jointly organized event by the NEPAD Business Foundation in collaboration with the NEPAD Secretariat, Department of Foreign Affairs as well as the Department of Trade and Industry, served the overall purpose of enlightening the private sector about ongoing initiatives and opportunities within the framework of NEPAD. Since then, there has been a renewed interest from private sector to identify and pursue specific opportunities, including identifying possible infrastructure projects for private sector participation.
In that light, the co-organizers identified the need to maintain and build on the momentum generated thus far and envisage the upcoming conference, to consolidate the efforts and leadership provided by the Republic of Zambia over the past year. This milestone represents a genuine attempt to scale up private sector participation and investment in infrastructure development. In addition, the various outcomes of the Corridors Review Meeting, the SADC Ministerial Corridor Investment programme held on 2-5 June 2008 in Windhoek, Namibia and the Financing Infrastructure Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa held on 8-9 July 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa, will be filtered into the conference on 8 August 2008.
In order to ensure a productive and fruitful conference with specific deliverables, the conference will focus on two development corridors and related projects, namely: i) The North-South Corridor (Botswana, DRC South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and ii) Central Corridor (Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). The conference will specifically identify and deeply analyse each development corridor, including the status of projects as well as actions required for successful implementation. Evaluation, prioritising infrastructure projects for immediate action, adopting pro-active measures; and defining modalities for the establishment of effective and action-oriented public private partnerships also form part of areas to be tabled.
For your further perusal and consideration, attached below is the concept note, corridor brief and registration form relating to the conference.
The draft programme of the conference will be dispatched on receipt of confirmation of your attendance.
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