A guide to infrastructure project preparation facilities in Africa has been produced by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA), and funded by a grant from the Private-Public Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF).

The guide is intended to help project sponsors prepare infrastructure projects by providing, in one place, basic information on the function of facilities designed to help with “project preparation activities”, and on how to access technical assistance funding and services.

Many special purpose facilities supporting the preparation of infrastructure projects in Africa have been set up by bilateral and multilateral donors to help improve the flow of ‘bankable’ projects. Most facilities are only able to provide support to a specific part of the project preparation lifecycle. It is therefore common for an organisation preparing a project to have to seek funding from several sources. To date, there has been no single source of information that identifies these facilities, sets out what each of them does, and indicates how their resources and services can be accessed.

The Guide only considers project preparation facilities which are able to provide support to projects in Africa. The infrastructure sectors considered are energy, water and sanitation, information and communication technology (ICT) and transport.

There are four main steps in using the guide:

1. Identify the relevant phase of project development that you need help for, and the type of support that might be available - Step 1 provides a description of the types of support provided by the facilities in this Guide, which will help you to decide at which phase of the project development cycle your project is, and what support might be available. The types of support are, for ease of classification, grouped into six phases.

   
   

2. Identify the facility or facilities that can help you once you have decided which type of project development support you need - step 2 will guide you to the facility, or facilities, that can help. For example, if you have decided that you need help with Phase 1: enabling environment, turn to the section on “Enabling environment” and you will find a list of facilities that can provide help.

   
   

3. Find out more about the facilities that can help you - Step 3 provides information on the facility or facilities that you have chosen to review. It includes, for example, information on application procedures.

   
   

4. Contact relevant individuals - The names and contact details of relevant individuals for each facility.

To read the guide, click here (PDF).