RE: African infrastructure development - a nutcracker suite (Part 1 of I'm not sure how many yet)
Hmm...very interesting post @kiligirl. I think I come at it a bit differently; I don't believe we really should be asking the question of where the private sector can, does, should fit into African infrastructure development and how we might be able to assist public institutions and their partners achieve better results. Rather, I think, we should flip this on its head. Seeing market opportunities in the infrastructure space, we should be developing our plans that are based on sound financial and economic fundamentals that we know will be viable and sustainable over the longer term--generally (though not always for sure), I think, private business is pretty good at allocating financial and other resources. Then we can go to these public institutions and determine how and where the resources they have may fit into our developments. And, it may well be (in many cases and for a variety of reasons), they do not or cannot. And, from my perspective, that is OK!
I hear you, @beantownboy, but I think we have to acknowledge there are some kinds of infrastructure which the private sector just doesn't have the means and wherewithal to develop, and yet it's still important to a functioning society. Both enabling and social infrastructure can be provided by the private sector where there's a business case, but sometimes there just isn't a business case - do we let those people go without? In the power sector, where I know you're strong, there are good opportunities for business to create viable, sustainable solutions. Similarly in ICT, as we've seen from the explosive penetration of mobile phones into, well, everywhere. I'm not convinced the transport and water sectors hold such great opportunities, particularly in rural areas; same with rural electricity, but I do think that energy services could become viable with innovations such as crypto-based payment mechanisms...so I'm open to persuasion :-).