A number of critical sea corridors connect the continent’s 15 landlocked countries to major seaports via a combination of roads and railways. Some $200 billion a year in imports and exports move along these corridors, barely 10,000 kilometers long. Although 70 percent of the roads in these corridors are in good or fair condition, regulatory and administrative hurdles continue to inflate costs and prolong delays for freight movements through these strategic arteries. In addition, road freight tariffs in Africa can be several times those found elsewhere, because restrictive regulation and cartelization have led to very high profit margins in the trucking industry.
Despite the reasonably good condition of roads, freight moves at the speed of a horse and buggy, owing to long delays (10–30 hours) at border crossings and ports. Member countries have begun to organize corridor associations to lower nonphysical barriers to transit by establishing one-stop integrated border posts and improving ports and custom administration.
Looking beyond export corridors, intra-African trade—which currently stands at around $10 billion a year—depends on having well-functioning road links within Africa. The Trans-African Highway system comprises nine main corridors extending just over 50,000 kilometers. In mid-2008, almost half of the network was in poor condition. Fully a quarter of the network had either an earth surface or no formed road at all. Most of these missing links are in Central Africa (see figure).
Missing links in the regional road network