TCBoost - Supporting Trade Capacity Building Worldwide

Nearly 80 percent of East Africa’s trade depends on the imports and exports that pass along the Northern and Central Corridors, underscoring the importance of infrastructural and operational improvements to lower the cost and increase the reliability of transport along the corridors. Through first-person accounts from regional corridor committee representatives; national transport ministers; and entrepreneurs in the grain; baskets and jewelry/handicrafts, mining, cotton and apparel; and tea sectors, Let’s Get East Africa Moving addresses the role and importance of the corridors in building regional growth and prosperity.

Requested by the leaders of the Tripartite (EAC, COMESA and SADC), the Corridor Diagnostic Study (CDS) was a comprehensive and detailed analysis of corridor efficiency in East Africa. CDS implementation entailed gathering and inventorying nearly 300 studies and reports, interviewing more than 250 trade and transit stakeholders across the five EAC countries, and collaborating with a wide range of regional and national transport institutions and international donors. The end result was a prioritized Action Plan for corridor improvement including infrastructural and operational (policy) projects. Learn how, together, we can implement the CDS Action Plan to reduce costs, improve prosperity and alleviate poverty in East Africa.

National economies in East Africa are growing 5-6% each year and increasing numbers of East Africans are trading themselves out of poverty through accessing local, regional and international markets. Learn more about how public-private partnerships in infrastructure improvements to the Northern and Central Corridors can improve corridor efficiencies, tap economic potential and make a difference in the lives of East Africans. The opportunities are enormous: East Africa is ready for you.

The Northern Corridor connects the Port of Mombasa to markets in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi as well as southern Sudan, parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and parts of northern Tanzania. It also links the East African Community (EAC) to states on its periphery: South Sudan, DRC and Ethiopia. Learn how public and private sector investment in the Corridor’s port, rail, and road networks can significantly reduce transport time and costs of transport and save the region USD $1.5 billion/year by 2015.

The Central Corridor connects the Port of Dar-es-Salaam to markets in Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It also links the East Africa Community (EAC) to a major regional port for overseas trade and connects the EAC partner states and DRC for intra-regional trade and personal mobility. More than 100 million East Africans rely on the Central Corridor as an economic lifeline—learn more about how improvements to the corridor’s seaports and lake ports, as well as its rail and road networks, can save close to half a billion US dollars per year in transport costs.