Transport Infrastructure Improvements Underway

This Newsletter has tended to concentrate on telecom improvements, but we should not forget that, slowly but surely, Africa’s roads are being addressed with major projects. Efforts to upgrade connections between main cities and hubs are mostly driven by RECs. The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently announced it had secured the $15.6bn to fund a “game-changing” West African highway, which is due to be completed in 2025. This is the 1,081km 3-lane highway designed to link Abidjan and Lagos. The highway has 3 parts, the Abidjan – Takoradi section of 295km; the Takoradi – Akanu (both in Ghana) section of 466 km; and the Noepe (in Togo) – Cotonou – Lagos section, of 320 km.

The facility will run along the coast and easy transportation between the most dynamic seaport cities and most populated hubs of the West African part of the Gulf of Guinea, including Abidjan (5m inhabitants), Takoradi (just under 1m), Accra (2.5m), Cotonou (2.6m) and Lagos (15m).

The East African Community also has 6 cross-border road projects, totaling 1504 km, while CEMAC – which groups central African nations – and SADC also have similar programmes.