Transport Observatories and corridor monitoring systems in Africa

Corridor Management Authorities (CMAs) generally use to develop specific IT tools for monitoring performances of transport corridors to quickly detect bottlenecks and promptly identify solutions to improve trade, transit and transport operations along the routes they oversee. A best practice in the adoption of these systems is offered by the Northern Corridor, considered as the birthplace of the concept of Corridor Transport Observatory in Africa. This model, through successive improvements and revisions, helped to shape the Central Corridor Transport Observatory and other projects of Transport Observatories in the continent.

The Permanent Secretariat of the Dar Corridor Committee (DCC), a CMA established to manage the Dar-es-Salaam Corridor (a multi-modal transport route covering a total distance of 5,400 km which runs from the port in Dar es Salaam through to landlocked Malawi, Zambia and southern DRC), also received in 2016 a funding from the World Bank for establishing a Corridor Performance Monitoring system and for buying the necessary equipment. Such authority however, became recently inactive due to financial constraints, so the project was suspended.

In West Africa, a regional coordination structure responsible for monitoring performances of the Abidjan-Lagos corridor was first established in 2004 by the five Corridor States crossed by such route, i.e., Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. This authority, the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organisation (ALCO), has played however, so far, a limited role in facilitating trade, because of financial constraints. Its activities have been mainly focused on coordination of programs and initiatives aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmissible diseases along the corridor and to support their victims. In March 2014, the Presidents of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo decided therefore to sign, in Yamoussoukro, the Treaty on the Establishment of the Abidjan – Lagos Corridor where they mandated a Steering Committee composed of the Ministers responsible for Transport, Works and/or Infrastructure to set up a corridor governance entity called Abidjan–Lagos Corridor Management Authority (ALCoMA) having supranational status, legal personality and financial autonomy. Institutional design and technical studies for the establishment of ALCoMA were completed in July, 2017, but the Authority has faced significant delays in being established. ALCoMA will be responsible to oversee the construction/upgrade works of the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, harmonize national corridor policies and monitor its performances through ICT.

Indicators developed by Transport Observatories that are currently active in Africa are usually accessible through dedicated web pages via a dashboard that provides consolidated data on key metrics on corridor performances, such as average time and delays at ports, border posts and other nodes along corridors. However, so far only the Northern and Central Corridors have managed to develop full-fledged transport observatories that offer detailed information on such metrics. Initially, these two systems were monitoring different sets of performance indicators. The Northern Corridor Transport Observatory, in particular, used initially to track over 40 key performance indicators (KPIs) grouped in 7 categories (Volume and capacity, Tariff and Rates, Transit Time and Delays, Efficiency and Productivity, Intra-regional trade, Road Safety and Green Freight), while the Central Corridor Transport Observatory tracked 33 performance indicators grouped into 4 categories (Volume and Capacity, Transport Rates and Costs, Transit Times and Delays and Efficiency and Productivity). At the East Africa Community (EAC) and Corridors Joint Economic forum held in 2018 in Dar es Salaam, the two CMAs decided to group them in six homogeneous categories, although not completely harmonized. The Norther Corridor Transport Observatory, for instance, also monitors data on Intra-regional trade which is not included in the Central Corridor Transport Observatory, while the latter includes data on gas emissions that are not monitored by the Northern Corridor KPIs. Furthermore, in order to promote road security, both the Northern and the Central Corridor CMAs have implemented plans for mapping blackspots and developing secure truck parking areas featuring modern facilities and amenities for truck drivers.

Being both the Northern and the Central corridors multimodal transport networks consisting of roads, railways, oil pipelines, and inland waterways connecting the landlocked countries of East Africa, respectively, to the seaports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, the indicators adopted by their Transport Observatories measure not only data referred to transit and clearance time at borders, but also volumes of cargo, vessel waiting times, ship turnaround time, cargo dwell time, customs clearance time at maritime ports and cargo throughput (the total volume of cargo discharged and loaded at ports, which includes break-bulk, liquid bulk, dry bulk, containerized cargo, transit cargo, and transhipment cargo). On road sections of corridors, performances are mainly measured by analysing variations in the transit time of vehicles, i.e., the average time taken by commercial vehicles to complete a trip along such roads. Other information that is collected by the Transport Observatories to feed the indicators include the road freight transport rates, which are typically provided by national Transporters Associations, and the weighbridge crossing times, that are generally transmitted by roads authorities based on data collected from weighbridge stations.

In September 2012 an Africa Corridor Management Alliance (ACMA) was launched, with an Interim Secretariat hosted at the Walvis Bay Corridor Group, in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The Alliance was established during the Africa Trade Forum (ATF) with the support of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Its purpose was to share best practices and other strategies among such authorities to support the efficient development and management of economic corridors on the Continent. However, the Alliance became inactive due to budgetary constraints.

A more recent initiative regarding the establishment of a corridor management authority has been launched by four countries in the Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda, that a few weeks ago concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the establishment of the DESSU (from the initials of the four countries) corridor management authority.

Already in 2019 COMESA developed the regulatory framework for the establishment of a CMA called Port Sudan Corridor Authority (PSCA) for overseeing trade operations along a corridor linking Sudan to Ethiopia, South Sudan, Republic of Central Africa and Chad. However, this authority - despite the great fanfare surrounding the project - was never established, proving that the creation of a CMA is not easy, as it requires a high level of political will and commitment, but above all, substantial funding - especially when they plan to establish Transport Observatories. And even when established with the support of donors, their sustainability is always a challenge. These authorities require substantial funds to survive and efficiently carry out their functions, or after a few years they will close. The Dar Corridor Committee - whose establishment was funded by USAID through the Southern Africa Trade Hub - is a case in point.

DESSU will support coordination of institutions, address trade bottlenecks, and improve the movement of goods along the Djibouti-Addis Ababa corridor. A Transport Observatory will collect and analyse real-time trade data, so that DESSU will be able to monitor performance, identify inefficiencies, and provide policy recommendations to the competent national authorities for improving the fluidity of cargo on the route. These activities are expected to lower trade costs, shorten transit times, and enhance the competitiveness of businesses operating along the corridor. At the moment the corridor in question only links Djibouti and Ethiopia, while several segments connecting it to South Sudan and Uganda are missing. The MOU mandates a joint committee with the task to develop the regulatory framework and financial architechture that will govern the Authority, a work that is currently ongoing. Afterwards, the most difficult part will begin: its operationalization. This will initially start with Djibouti and Ethiopia and once the links to South Sudan and Uganda will be completed, also these two countries will come in.