The African Development Bank has pledged $500 million to develop the strategic Lobito Corridor connecting Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to interlink countries and boost trade.
African Development Bank President, Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina, made the announcement at a special session of the Africa Investment Forum 2023 Market Days taking place in Marrakech, Morocco.
“That is the Africa we want: a fully interconnected Africa, using regional corridor infrastructure and innovative regional financing instruments, to unleash economic opportunities and assure competitiveness of national and regional value chains. A well-connected Africa will be a more competitive Africa.”
The African Development Bank has pledged $500 million to develop the strategic Lobito Corridor connecting Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to interlink countries and boost trade.
Dr Adesina suggested five priority areas to fully optimize the benefits of the developing regional corridors across Africa. These include dedicating pooled financing facilities to corridor projects, building special industrial zones around the corridors to optimize existing infrastructure; adopting a systematic approach and platform to syndicate around the development of strategic regional corridors.
He said the development of regional corridors should be complemented with one-stop border posts to facilitate trade and reduce travel times on the corridors. He proposed concessional financing, such as the African Development Fund, which offers low-income countries unmatched resources to commit to developing regional corridors.
Other projects the banks has invested in include the $20 billion Desert-to-Power initiative to develop 10 GW of solar power across 11 countries of the Sahel zone; the Mozambique-Beira corridor transport system; the $259million Kazungula bridge, which has already been commissioned; the $2.7 billion Nacala rail and port project in Mozambique, and the Lagos-Abidjan highway, which secured investment interest of $15.2 billion at the Africa Investment Forum last year.
The Desert to Power G5 Financing Facility aims to assist the G5 Sahel countries to adopt a low-emission power generation pathway by making use of the region’s abundant solar potential
As of 2022, the African Development Bank had invested $13.5 billion in funding 25 transport corridors, building more than 18,000 km of roads, establishing 27 border posts, and constructing 16 bridges.
