Africa infrastructure development index 2020 |06 September 2021
One of the housing estates recently inaugurated
Seychelles leading country in Africa
Compiled by Vidya Gappy
According to the site Statista, in 2020, Seychelles was the leading country in Africa in the African Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI), with 96.73 points.
It was followed by Egypt and Libya, which scored 88.39 and 82.97 points, respectively.
The index indicates the status of infrastructure development across the continent.
The source adds the following information: “The Africa Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) serves a number of key objectives, principally: (i) to monitor and evaluate the status and progress of infrastructure development across the continent; (ii) to assist in resource allocation within the framework of ADF replenishments; and (iii) to contribute to policy dialogue within the Bank and between the Bank, RMCs and other development organisations.”
Since our Independence in 1976, Seychelles slowly started looking at the infrastructure in the country and started building schools, houses for its population, the airport and other main facilities. Since 1999, the country has been investing in proper roads around the islands and now in 2021, we can see several buildings mostly privately owned in Victoria and Providence area.
In July this year, the minister responsible for lands and housing, Billy Rangasamy, talked about how the scarcity of land and housing is still a big challenge while answering some questions in the National Assembly.
There are currently 1,594 applicants for a plot of land in the land bank scheme and 2,850 applicants for a house in the different projects which include condominiums, self-finance and social housing, the minister shared.
The minister also remarked on that day that however, as per the national budget, government has allocated to the ministry funds to build around 190 housing units and open up about 100 plots of land during this budget year. The aim is to make the housing system more sustainable. The ministry is also conducting an inventory on state land, and exploring the potential for development.
The Seychelles government is intensifying its efforts to develop infrastructure in different districts across the two main islands of Mahé and Praslin to ensure that artisanal fisheries remain an important pillar in the island nation's economy.
To note Statista is a German company specialising in market and consumer data. According to the company, its platform contains more than 1,000,000 statistics on more than 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources and 170 different industries.
