Africa’s Giants

Great Works of Civilization

Within the global economy, Africa has in recent years become the continent where the “desire for progress” is being translated into real action and tangible outcomes. This is the true face of a continent with high poverty rates, but rich in natural resources that could realistically be used to enable Africa’s 1.1 billion population to become the drivers of economic growth.

It is not by chance that Africa has been called the “investment hub of the future”. It is the single most attractive area of the world for those who are working to achieve sustainable development, which combines entrepreneurial commitment, the potential of its people, and respect for the environment.

The Salini Impregilo Group finds itself in the front line of this process, armed with its long history of experience in major infrastructural works in the water sector. The images brought together in this book provide a highly evocative confirmation of the strategic “value” of water, transformed by dams and hydroelectric plants into a source of life and progress.

Since 1960, the Group has built approximately 60 dams in Africa - major works that embody the technological and professional excellence that is a hallmark of Italian expertise around the world. And all of this experience has now been brought together in a single enterprise to create a Group that can compete worldwide, a Group that builds infrastructure on an industrial scale, but always in full respect of environmental concerns and different cultures.

Ultimately, what comes out of all this is the idea that dams are not barriers, but links for civilisation in a value chain where water has supreme importance, venerated by all religions and all peoples who wish to come together to turn hope into reality.

Pietro Salini
Chief Executive Officer of Webuild 

The Hope of Development

Romano Prodi

Africa is waking up. Of course, it would be somewhat exaggerated to call it an African Renaissance as some observers like to, but something new is happening. It certainly does not provide the remedy for the continent’s tragic poverty but at least it brings some hope for the future. From the Mediterranean to southern Africa, everything is on the move: streams of people are leaving rural areas for the sprawling outskirts of the cities. They follow the invisible new link of mobile phones, while Chinese engineers and workers are building roads and railways designed to open up the way towards modernity in a continent that has never succeeded in achieving it by itself.

Nevertheless, it would be as well not to harbour any illusions, because this process is only at the beginning and Africa remains by far the poorest continent in the world.

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