From June 27 until July 1 this year South Africa will be host to the Africa Rail and African Ports & Harbours Congress 2011, an essential meeting and exhibition for the entire African transport industry.

By John O’Hanlon

A country’s ports are its front doors, and while Rotterdam and Singapore, Piraeus and Shanghai define the great sea routes of the past, Africa’s ports, strung around ‘the world’s biggest island’ may be said to define the future. From the ancient harbours of the Mediterranean looking across to Europe; circling round to the West African ports rapidly adapting for oil; Cape Town and Durban in South Africa; and the Indian Ocean gateways of Maputo, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa so readily within reach of India and the Middle East, they are portals to the world’s fastest-growing economic region.
With its huge human potential and its massive mineral resources Africa is quickly being recognised as a vital driver of world economic expansion in the 21st century and a place where well-structured investment will benefit every part of the globe. Against this background, the events taking place in Johannesburg at the end of June take on much more than purely regional significance. Africa Rail 2011 will be the 14th annual conference and exhibition, bringing together rail operators, government agencies and investors, while Africa Ports & Harbours Congress focuses for the eighth successive year on investment issues, best practices and international collaboration.
The synergies that exist between these events and Signalling & Train Control World, a more technical event, which runs in parallel, are self-evident. For the continent to develop (this is becoming a cliché!) there is a vital need for existing infrastructure to be upgraded to world class standards, and new systems built in the many places where these are non-existent. But Africa has an opportunity that other parts of the world lack: this is the chance to grow its infrastructure in a pan-national way, a way that will allow it to fulfil its destiny on a par with the ‘BRIC’ group of economies on which the future prosperity of the entire world depends.
These are some of the reasons why Rail Africa and Africa Ports & Harbours attract speakers, delegates, exhibitors and observers not only from all parts of Africa but from all over the world. As Sam Pickard, Business Development Manager for Terrapinn South Africa, which organises the conventions says: “The focus of the event is to bring together African railway and port authorities to talk about how to manage their assets at a strategic level. How do they garner investment, and following that, how can they manage that investment?”
Handling investment is a headache for both groups of administrators. This is a chance for them to test their ideas against the experience of people who have worked within different funding models in various contexts: public/private partnerships (PPP) for example. No two projects are ever the same, and each country has different regulatory, legal and political drivers, but delegates to the conventions will be able to see how other ports or rail networks have worked with that kind of structure, says Pickard. “We will be talking about current projects: what has worked and what can be improved, sharing best practice and the different methodologies and systems that are in use to help drive the efficiency of the port or rail environment and move it forward.”
While South Africa may be seen as ahead of the game, and European and America speakers present some state-of-the-art solutions, there is also a powerful presence from BRIC countries, with opportunities to benchmark on best practice in other emerging economies. After all, the seaports and inland industrial hubs across the continent, linked by a network of rail and road routes, are economically interdependent. The people who lead and manage these facilities are, or should be, more aware of the power of networking than anyone. The organisers are determined to encourage key people to get together between sessions to exchange details.
They may not have time within the tightly packed agenda to actually start negotiating with one another: that can come later says Pickard. “We have developed a concept called Speed Networking, where people get the chance to exchange cards with people whose interests coincide. It is like speed dating, but not so scary!” she suggests. This resonates with the organisers’ vision that networking extends beyond the conference itself, through blogs on the Terrapinn website as well as the Africa Rail LinkedIn group.
The Africa Rail and Africa Ports and Harbours events are separately organised but the opportunity exists for cross-fertilisation, sharing best practice and discussing matters of common interest like how and when private finance can be effectively harnessed to deliver major projects.
The actual content is controlled by Conference Manager Hmrithi Jairam who explains why Africa Rail and Africa Ports & Harbours have become so vital to the future of transportation in Africa. “This is the platform where all the big players in the industry will be discussing ‘how to’ within each industry. At the conferences they will be considering steps that the industry needs to take in order to increase regional trade and urbanisation, to increase investment into infrastructure, to improve the operational efficiency of African railways and ports, and other issues crucial to the progress of this sector.”
The people who supply and implement systems will underpin this strategic overview. Train routing and detection, traffic management systems, driver information – all these feed into the safety and efficiency of the system and are given thorough consideration in Signalling and Train Control World.
Africa Rail then goes boldly into the visionary and inspirational territory of ‘re-imagining Africa’s railways’ before proceeding to high finance and the crucial role of the BRIC partners, whose interests coincide so closely with those of Africa, says Hmrithi. “It is a global outlook – we need to see what America and Europe are doing, but the BRIC viewpoint is just as important because as we all know there is a gap between the emerging markets and the mature markets!”
Both conferences will focus on the big issues like funding and finance, innovation and technology, she continues. PPP funding may have more relevance in the rail industry, privatisation for the ports; operators may have different concerns from developers: however discussion will always come back to individual projects, or as Hmrithi puts it: “The conference allows Africans to find out what other Africans are doing – and it allows outside investors to identify African projects they can support.”