The Northern Corridor Transport Infrastructure Master Plan

Under a grant in different currencies from the African Development Bank Group towards the cost of financing some regional activities under the East Africa Trade and Transport Facilitation Project, the NCTTCA is preparing a comprehensive infrastructure master plan for the Northern Corridor.

One of the components of the project under this grant is the preparation of a comprehensive infrastructure master plan for the Northern Corridor in order to provide a long-term vision to the NCTTCA member countries in the planning the expansion of the Corridor infrastructure and facilities and in addressing the related institutional, financial, and management issues.

Why does the NCTTCA need a Comprehensive Infrastructure Master Plan?
There are numerous initiatives from members States in the area of Infrastructure Development and Management, hence the need to develop an integrated infrastructure plan for the region in order to promote both intra-regional and international trade with the view of stimulating economic growth both within the member states and within the entire sub-region as a whole.

In the process of developing infrastructure, one of the areas to be considered is the adoption of common standards for infrastructure design and maintenance. In the case of road infrastructure, there are differences at the national level in the design standards yet there are trucks that operate regionally, which makes it rather difficult to enforce common regulations relating to vehicle weights and dimension.

There is also need to ensure that the roads reach the designed life span of the road infrastructure. To achieve this, common standards for road building and maintenance have to be adopted. The issue of adoption of common standards also applies in the case of railways and other type of transportation infrastructure.

In addition, the Northern Corridor Member States have decided to turn most of the border crossing points into one-stop border posts, in order to enhance the flow of trade and transport. Such border posts require substantial uplift of their current infrastructure facilities. There is therefore, need to determine what improvements are necessary and to explore various mechanisms for their provision and sustenance, including public/private partnership possibilities.

The Northern Corridor Transport Infrastructure Master Plan will constitute a valuable planning framework to NCTTCA member states in the development of their transportation infrastructure over a period of 15 years.

The Expression of Interest (EOI) has been launched and 21 proposals have been received. The Secretariat is in the process of compiling a short-list of these proposals for consideration in the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage.