Trasportation

African countries need to promote industrial development to spur economic progress and reduce poverty, according to a recent report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Africa's share of global manufacturing is drastically disproportionate to its population. While 15 percent of the world's population lives in Africa, only about one percent of global manufacturing takes place there. That is largely due to poor transport, communications and energy infrastructures, says UNCTAD's latest Economic Development in Africa Report. The main infrastructure problems The poor state of Africa's infrastructure becomes obvious when traveling 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) by train from Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. Disused wagons are a common sight and the train makes several unexplained stops.

Power

"The majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa still experience regular power-outages, which of course contribute to a low productivity of many firms," said German Development Cooperation economist Matthias Grossmann. Power is Africa's biggest infrastructure weak point, with as many as 30 countries facing regular power outages, according to a 2010 report by the World Bank and France's development agency. Companies operating in most African countries where power supply is unreliable have resorted to purchasing diesel-operated power generators, which increases operating costs drastically, said Jens Schleuniger, Africa Portfolio Manager at VCH Asset Management in Frankfurthttp://www.dw.com/en/poor-infrastructure-is-key-obstacle-to-development-in-africa/a-15264436

Schools

Thousands of schools in South Africa lack the infrastructure necessary to provide learners with the quality education which they are legally entitled to receive.The DBE’s National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) Report, published in May 2011, and indicates that schools in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal are in the worst condition, but that the problem of poor infrastructure is not exclusive to rural provinces. Equal Education’s recently-conducted audit of sanitation in schools in Tembisa, Gauteng, echoed this finding.The audit, which surveyed 11 public secondary schools, revealed that the vast majority have insufficient infrastructure or a dysfunctional sanitation system. Gauteng, despite being the wealthiest province, suffers from significant infrastructural inadequacies. The NEIMS Report also provides detailed statistics on the lack of resources at public schools across the country.  It is noted in NEIMS that, of the 24 793 public ordinary schools:

• 3544 schools do not have electricity, while a further 804 schools have an unreliable electricity source;
• 2402 schools have no water supply, while a further 2611 schools have an unreliable water supply;
• 913 do not have any ablution facilities while 11 450 schools are still using pit latrine toilets;
• 22938 schools do not have stocked libraries, while 19 541 do not even have a space for a library;
• 21021 schools do not have any laboratory facilities, while 1231 schools have stocked laboratories;
• 2703 schools have no fencing at all; and 19 037 schools do not have a computer centre, whilst a further 3 267 have a room designed as a computer centre but are not stocked with computers.

https://equaleducation.org.za/campaigns/school-infrastructure/

Internet Communication

As a result, about 75 per cent of Internet traffic in Africa first goes through Europe or the US and is then routed back, a very costly process. For example, while Benin and Burkina Faso are neighbours, Internet traffic between them passes through France or Canada. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada estimates that Africa spends $400 mn each year on the use of international bandwidth for national or regional data. In fact, in many cases, e-mails sent between two Internet service providers in the same country are sent abroad and then rerouted back because domestic “Internet exchange points” are lacking. The slow pace of Internet development on the continent is reflected in low levels of use. Only 2.6 per cent of Africans have access to the Internet, compared with 10 per cent of Asians, 36 per cent of Europeans and 69 per cent of North Americans. When broken down by country, the level of Internet use in most of Africa is even lower, since two countries, Egypt and South Africa, account for nearly half of all users. http://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/why-infrastructure-development-africa-matters