Why Does Cargo Spend Weeks in Sub-Saharan African Ports? Lessons from Six Countries

Gaël Raballand, Salim Refas, Monica Beuran, Gözde Isik

• Publisher: World Bank
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Economics
• eBook ISBN:
  9780821394991
• Subtopic: Commercial Policy
• Index: Economics

This study is timely because several investments are planned for container terminals in Sub-Saharan Africa. From a public policy perspective, disentangling the reasons behind cargo delays in ports is crucial to understanding:a) whether projects by the World Bank and other donors have addressed the most salient problems; and b) whether institutional port reform and infrastructure, sometimes complemented by customs reform, are the most appropriate approaches or should be adapted. Without such identification and quantification, projects may ultimately result in a limited impact, and structural problems of long delays will remain. Dwell time figures are a major commercial instrument used to attract cargo and generate revenues. Therefore, the incentives for a port authority and a container terminal operator are increasingly strong to lower the real figure to attract more cargo. At the same time, ports are more and more in competition, so the question of how to obtain independently verifiable dwell time data is increasingly critical to provide assurance that interventions are indeed having the intended effect.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview
• Chapter 2 Literature Findings and Methodological Considerations
• Chapter 3 Main Findings from the Case Studies
• Chapter 4 The Impact of Demand on Container Dwell Time
• Chapter 5 Estimated Impacts and Political Economy of Long Dwell Times
• Chapter 6 Policy Recommendations to Reduce Dwell Time
• Appendix A Detailed Information on the Case Studies
• Appendix B A Simplified Analytical Demand Model of Container Dwell Times in Port
• Appendix C Main Descriptive Statistics of Firm Surveys
• Box
• Figures
• Tables