CAMEROON’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE Addressing Cameroon’s infrastructure challenges will require sustained expenditure of $1,480 million per year over the next decade. More than two-thirds of the required spending ($1,095 million) is associated with capital investments, and the remaining third with operations and maintenance. Almost one-third of the total spending needs are related to the power sector, followed by water supply and sanitation. The effort that Cameroon would need to make to meet its infrastructure needs is equivalent to 8.9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), significantly below the average for Sub-Saharan Africa (14.5 percent).

Cameroon already spends around $930 million per year on infrastructure, equivalent to 5.6 percent of its GDP. About half goes toward operation and maintenance spending ($490 million). The transport sector receives the highest level of spending ($273 million per year), followed closely by the power sector ($258 million). About half of Cameroon’s spending is funded by the public sector. The private sector is the country’s largest external financier of infrastructure, with private investment almost commensurate with public investment and significantly higher than official development assistance received from the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Significantly, Cameroon has succeeded in attracting private investment not only into its ICT sector but also into power and water.

Furthermore, some $586 million are being lost to inefficiencies of various kinds. By far the largest culprit is the power sector, which hemorrhages $487 million annually through serious underpricing of power and massive distributional losses. By adopting suitable policy measures and institutional reforms, Cameroon could recapture these resources for infrastructure.

After taking inefficiencies into account, a substantial funding gap of $350 million per year remains. Some $250 million of the overall funding gap relates to water supply and sanitation and spending needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Greater reliance on less costly forms of improved water and sanitation could reduce the funding gap in the sector by about a third.

Given Cameroon’s relatively strong economy and natural resource base, as well as its good record with private finance, the country should be able to meet the infrastructure targets outlined here. Perhaps more challenging than raising additional finance, however, will be making the difficult political decisions needed to address the sizeable efficiency gap. But the potential rewards are high. Even without increasing existing spending, Cameroon could meet its spending targets within 13 years just by capturing inefficiencies.

# The continental perspective

The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has gathered and analyzed extensive data on infrastructure in more than 40 Sub-Saharan countries, including Cameroon. The results have been presented in reports covering different areas of infrastructure—ICT, irrigation, power, transport, water and sanitation—and different policy areas—including investment needs, fiscal costs, and sector performance.

This report presents the key AICD findings for Cameroon, allowing the country’s infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that Cameroon’s economy is heavily 2