- The inadequate road corridor from Kenya's port city Mombasa, via Nairobi and the Ethiopian highlands to Addis Ababa is to be upgraded. The heavily used road corridor forms part of the large Cape to Cairo Trans-African Highway to be established.
The Kenyan Ministry of Roads and Public Works is to start up its works of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Addis Ababa highway in January 2005. The extensive works to improve the key East Africa - African Horn corridor is estimated to take four to five years, hopefully ending in late 2009.
The project road is an important section of the Trans-African Highway Corridor from Cairo to Cape Town. The road is already carrying considerable volume of heavy traffic and its standard is now seen as "inadequate" when compared to its designation as not only the main international road connecting Kenya and Ethiopia, but also as a Trans-African Highway.
- This condition represents a major physical barrier for trade and regional integration, the Ministry of Roads and Public Works held in its description of the major infrastructure project. It is in particular the road section in northern Kenya - from the town of Isiolo to the Ethiopian border - that urgently needs an upgrading.
The large project today achieved major financing from the Tunis-based African Development Fund (ADF), which approved of a loan agreement of US$ 51.6 million and a grant agreement of US$ 3.9 million for the Kenyan government. Other creditors and donors also play a large role in the funding of the road project, which is seen as important for regional economic integration.
- The main objective of the project is to contribute to increase cross-border trade and production factor flows between the Eastern and Horn of Africa regions to support regional socio-economic development, according to the ADF. The upgraded road will "improve land transport communications between Kenya and Ethiopia and contribute to enhance trade and regional economic integration."
For landlocked Ethiopia, the upgraded road will provide an alternative outlet to the sea through the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Ethiopia currently depends on the port of Djibouti and Somaliland's port in Berbera. The closer Eritrean ports remain closed to Ethiopians due to the continued hostilities between the two neighbours.
For Kenya, the road project mainly will mean a re-opening of the country's arid North Eastern Province, were development has been slow compared to the rest of the country. Infrastructure in this part of Kenya is close to non-existent.
The main objective for the ADF to finance the road project is however the large expected importance for regional economic integration between East Africa and the Horn of Africa.
At project completion in 2009, annual trade between the two regions was estimated to grow from the current US$ 35 million to US$ 175 million. This represents a 500 percent increase, which again would "boost significantly the domestic trade within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)," according to the ADF.
- Lastly, the development of the corridor will expand market sizes beyond national boundaries and foster a conducive and enabling environment for the private sector and for attracting direct foreign investments, creating job opportunities in the region, according to the Fund.
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