Enhancing Connectivity through Transport Infrastructure

OECD

• Publisher: OECD
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9789264307230
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

Chapter 1. The current state of transport infrastructure per developing country region1

There are various challenges and deficiencies related to transport connectivity in each developing country region, such as: missing highway links in Africa; under-developed inland waterways and poor maintenance of ports in Latin America; inadequate quality and capacity of road and ports in Asia; and low transport safety standards in Europe. In this context, there are numerous ongoing action plans and initiatives at the regional and sub-regional level to address these issues. A table that summarises the current state of transport connectivity by subsector and action plans per region can be found at the end of this chapter.

Africa

In Africa, deficiencies in transport connectivity infrastructure partly led to the low trade levels of the continent. In 2015, African exports only accounted for 2% of total worldwide merchandise exports. Likewise, intra-regional trade was also notably low at 18% compared to 52% in Asia (UNCTAD, 2017). Therefore, one of the priorities for Africa is to increase international and intra-regional trade to promote economic growth, development, and industrialisation through value chains.

Accordingly, many African countries have invested in transport infrastructure as a way to increase regional integration and intra-regional trade (AUC, 2015). According to the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA), African country governments allocated more resources to transport compared to other infrastructure sectors - on average USD 16 billion in 2014-2015 - although this includes urban and small-scale transport projects. However, the transport cost is still generally high, partly due to deficiencies in both hard and soft aspects in transport connectivity (PIDA, n.d.; ICA, 2017).

Concerning roads, the network across Africa, including long-distance and regional, is low density and poor quality, although the situation varies considerably across countries. While road is the main mode of transport, carrying 90% of passengers and 80% of goods, 53% of roads are unpaved. Furthermore, less than half the population has access to all-season roads, which includes urban and small-scale roads. This issue is exacerbated by vehicle overloading and inefficient road maintenance, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs), thereby causing road surfaces to degrade quickly and resulting in severe traffic congestions (AfDB, 2014).

Specifically, 25% of the Trans-African Highway (TAH) Network which was designed in the early 1970s to connect capitals with ten planned corridors (Figure 1.1) is yet to be completed. This is mainly due to the lack of funding for the central and southern sections of the network, owing to political instability and difficult climatic conditions. For example, roughly 3 000 km of roads in the TAH 08 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 1 300 km of roads in the TAH 06 (N’Djamena-Djibouti) passing through Darfur in western Sudan still remain to be built or rehabilitated due to the civil war and political turmoil. In addition, some governments do not prioritise the construction, maintenance, or rehabilitation of certain roads. For example, TAH 05 is incomplete mainly due to the low priority accorded to the rehabilitation of the Cameroon section by its national road authority, since the route is mostly used by vehicles merely passing through the country between Nigeria and Chad (AfDB/UNECA, 2003).

Figure 1.1. Trans-African Highways

Source: AfDB (2010), Infrastructure Deficit and Opportunities in Africa, ,https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/ECON%20Brief_Infrastructure%20Deficit%20and%20Opportunities%20in%20Africa_Vol%201%20Issue%202.pdf.

Furthermore, there are only few railways in Africa while existing ones are characterised by outdated infrastructure and limited maintenance. To illustrate, there are on average only 2.8 km of railway tracks per 1 000 km2 of land, compared to an average of 50 km in Europe, 6.5 km in Asia, and 5.7 km in Latin America. In particular, 13 sub-Saharan African countries have no functional domestic rail networks, let alone cross-border ones.

With respect to water transport, African ports have inadequate capacity, especially in terminal storage, and are uneconomically operated. They also face significant delays caused by poor shipment procedures, high handling costs, and long processing time. These issues are exacerbated by the lack of efficient linkages between land transportation and ports (AfDB, 2014).

Moreover, air transport in Africa remains under-developed in terms of number and capacity of airports as well as the level of safety standards. In 2013, there were on average only 0.3 airports per million inhabitants, compared to 0.98 in Europe and 0.81 in Latin America. Meanwhile, the average capacity of airports, including the international ones, was only 250 000 passengers, compared with 1.7 million in Asia, 1 million in Europe, and 450 000 in Latin America (PwC, 2014). In addition, African airports are characterised by the lowest safety standards among all regions of the world, with one accident for 270 000 flights, compared to a global average of 1 accident in every 5 million flights. The development of air transport in Africa is also hindered by the limited liberalisation of air space across countries. In this context, African c...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Legal and rights
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• Executive summary
• Overview: Supporting transport connectivity in developing countries
• Chapter 1. The current state of transport infrastructure per developing country region
• Chapter 2. Strategies and activities of development partners for transport connectivity
• Chapter 3. Finance for transport connectivity
• Chapter 4. Development partner profiles
• Annex A. Technical notes
• Glossary
• About the OECD