Africa must dismantle the legacy of colonial infrastructure designed for resource extraction and replace it with networks that foster internal unity, former Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab said on Saturday.
Speaking at the 1st Egyptian-African Economic Conference in Cairo, Mahlab argued that the continent’s fragmentation was a deliberate engineering of the past that continues to hamper economic growth today.
“Under colonialism, roads were cut between regions… They only wanted roads to the ports to loot our raw materials,” Mahlab said. “They built railways to the ports for export, not for internal trade. We must change this philosophy.”
The “Cairo-Cape Town” Dream
Mahlab, a construction engineer by training who previously led one of the region’s largest contractors, championed the Cairo-Cape Town highway as a transformative project. He described the trans-continental route not merely as a road, but as a “zone of opportunity” capable of linking supply chains from the north to the south of the continent.
However, he warned that such “African dreams” are stalling due to a lack of bankable projects and institutional capacity.
“The weakest link is often the institutional capacity to execute projects,” he said, urging African governments to focus on building strong institutions capable of managing complex, cross-border developments.
Financing the Future
With state budgets across the continent under strain from rising debt and inflation, Mahlab said governments can no longer fund infrastructure alone.
He called for the aggressive adoption of innovative financing models to close the funding gap:
- Public-Private Partnerships (PPP): Leveraging private capital for public assets.
- Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT): Allowing private firms to finance, build, and operate projects for a set period before transferring ownership to the state.
- Hybrid Financing: Blending state funds with private investment.
“Integration is not a loss of sovereignty; it is an investment in a joint future,” Mahlab concluded.
The remarks were delivered at a summit organized by Al-Ahram Hebdo, which convened ministers, diplomats, and business leaders to discuss the activation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
