Indigenous Population & Infrastructure Enhancement In Africa (Preferably Central - East Africa)

Indigenous people are distinct cultural societies and communities.  Most of the inhabitants of Africa are indigenous in the sense that they existed before colonization. Their identity and lifestyle are unique. These indigenous people face a lot of problems like lack of recognition, land alienation (resulting in conflict between them and the government) and marginalization. They lack access to education and health opportunities and are extremely poor. The indigenous population in Africa are mostly unemployed.

Most of the counties in Central-East Africa are still in their early stages of life. They are yet to transition from traditional agrarian to modern lifestyle. Most of these people are engaged in agriculture which indicates the low infrastructural advancement in the areas.  The internal regional conflict tensions in the Central and East Africa also posed difficulty in successfully implementing infrastructural development projects. East Africa is getting foreign direct investments currently.

National governments are willing to achieve an advancement in large scale infrastructural development to increase economic growth, increase employment opportunities and reduce resilience to foreign aid. Also, Africa receives loans and technical support from the African Development Bank as well as from the World Bank and interest from China. Such investments are mostly implemented in the rural areas that have remained aloof from the outside world.

National and International laws aren't followed or given any importance by the people living in such regions. Any kind of developmental work and entrance of outsiders can have a great impact on the indigenous population. These are historically rooted tensions in such areas which is the main reason for the developmental project failures. Unwelcoming and negative attitudes of the local population can make the investors change their ideas of investing in such areas to avoid any dangers.

With changing times, the importance of infrastructure grew unanimously. Enhancing infrastructure can support the indigenous growing population with the basic essential facilities, structures and services. The changing social, environment and economic systems demands the inclusiveness of indigenous population in gaining information with their insights for achieving resilience and sustainability. There should be a proper collaboration between various projects and indigenous communities in planning and designing of infrastructure. 

Governments and development banks unveiled ambitious plans for enhancing infrastructure. Seeing this many investors have started investing in infrastructure. This is also the case in Africa where mega- infrastructure projects have started to dominate the national and global development policy agendas. The National policy on science, technology and innovation holds a key to Rwanda's sustainable development in terms of economic and demographic growth. STI is also implicit in the priority given in the document to ICT’s energy and green innovation and in the proposal to create a climate change and environment Innovation Centre. There are five priorities given,  these are:

 

1. Investment in hard as well as soft infrastructure to meet the demand of energy in the private sector.
2. Increase in accessing public goods and resources by building international airports and also working on plans of establishing railway connections. Focus should also be given on exports and re-exports to Burundi and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and major investment to be given on both hard and soft infrastructure to accelerate the growth in the tourism and community sectors. Expansion on the export works in manufacturing and agro- processing will also take place.
3. To strengthen the investment process by targeting large foreign investors in priority economic sectors, increasing the long-term services and strengthening the private sector by reforming taxation.
4. To facilitate and manage proper urbanization by promoting affordable housing facilities.
5.  To pursue a “green economy” and bring economic transformation prioritizing given urbanization and green innovation in public and private industry. A pilot green city is being launched by 2018 to test and promote a new approach to urbanization employing various technologies to create sustainable cities. 

Regional integration among the Central and East-African countries can favor infrastructural development. There is also the construction of the Ethiopia Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile illustrating the significance of intraregional dialogue. After its completion, it will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa and the eight largest in the world. In terms of transport infrastructure, Africa lacks behind it too. It will be a major challenge to develop railway and road linkages to ports for creating a better connection with other countries with one another and contributing to the global economy. Fortunately, there are potential areas for investment in oil and mineral exploration in Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. Large Infrastructure projects have also started in Rwanda. 

Conclusion

Africa is facing a monumental task in prioritizing, accelerating and scaling up quality infrastructure enhancement. It can take several years or decades for an infrastructure project to go from idea to operation. Infrastructure in Africa (especially in Central and east Africa) is lagging behind. The reason is both financial as well as technical constraints. African must aim in solving internal conflicts and poverty reduction for overall human and infrastructural development. The marginalized section of the population must be made involved while planning for infrastructural development projects. Development that takes place without benefiting the indigenous population cannot be called a development.