The African Development Corridors Database: a new tool to assess the impacts of infrastructure investments

The African Development Corridors database is publicly available. The visualisation of the database that can be explored interactively here: https://dcp-unep-wcmc.opendata.arcgis.com/. The data is deposited in the Dryad Digital Repository referenced as Thorn, J. P.R., Mwangi, B.; Juffe Bignoli, D., The African Development Corridors Database, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9kd51c5hw (2022)⁴³. The final data were compiled into an online Master database spreadsheet, using the project code data as the merging attribute of the spatial and tabular database (AfricanDevelopmentCorridorsDatabase2022.csv). The African Development Corridor Database is presented as a GeoPackage file (.gpkg) and ESRI file Geodatabase (.gdb) composed by line and point feature datasets with the 22 associated attributes for all mapped corridors, a table with corridors that could not be mapped (also with the attributes), and a table with all sources consulted for each project code.

We created a data standard to ensure a systematic and standardised data collection (Supplementary Table 2). Each data record in the database represents a project within a development corridor. To group all projects within the same development corridor we used a unique identifier composed by three letters that identified the corridor plus a number unique for each project or record. For example, the Lamu port project in Kenya within the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) was represented as LAP000. In this corridor we identified 20 projects, from LAP0001 which is the Lamu Port to LAP0020 which is the Isiolo-Lokichar-Lodwar-Nadapal Highway in Kenya. In addition to the unique identifier for each project, the data standard includes data attributes that provide detailed information about each project. Table 1 describes the attributes included in the database. Supplementary Table 3 summarises the 79 corridors included in the database.

Infrastructure types and status of development corridors in Africa

The data consists of a total of 79 corridors consisting of 184 projects (Fig. 2). Of the 12 infrastructure types, the most predominant form of infrastructure in Africa’s development corridors is roads (n = 64, 34.8%), followed by wet ports (n = 38, 20.7%), passenger and freight railways (n = 33, 17.9%), and airports (n = 14, 7.6%). Fewer resort cities, electricity transmission lines, dry ports, industrial parks, and water pipelines comprise development corridors (all ≤ n = 3, 1.6%) (Fig. 3). We acknowledge our study might not include many infrastructure developments that are components projects of larger programmes but are not yet labelled as corridors. A total of 107 (58.7%) projects are operational, 35 (19%) are in progress, 25 (13.6%) are planned, 25 (13.9%) are being upgraded, and 2(1%) are on hold.

Spatial distribution

The linear distance of development corridors in Africa is 122,294 km – which approximates to three times the Earth’s circumference, with an average of 1703.84 ± 213.19 km (mean, SE), ranging from 4–11,141 km. In terms of number of projects per country, Kenya has the most projects (n = 34, 18.5%), followed by Tanzania (n = 18, 9.8%), South Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo (n = 17, 9.2% ea.), Ethiopia (n = 15, 8.2%), Mozambique and Zambia (n = 14, 7.6%), Angola, Uganda, Guinea and Cameroon (n = 12, 6.5%), Namibia (n = 11, 6.0%), Republic of Congo (n = 10, 5.4%), Burundi and Chad (n = 9, 4.9%), Malawi, Senegal, and Zimbabwe (n = 8, 4.4%), and Burkina Faso and Ghana (n = 7, 3.8%). Due to differences in the frequency and quality that countries publish data on infrastructure and development corridor investments, coverage may be lower for some regions, or some periods (i.e., recent, or further in the past).

Investments in development corridors

Adjusting for inflation, the total investment of development corridors that is captured in the database ranges between USD 547.29–658.62 billion. The average cost of a corridor ranges between USD 3.46 ± 1.92 billion and USD 4.17 ± 2.04 billion. This is a notable sum, considering the average GDP in sub-Saharan Africa is USD 1.48 billion⁴⁴. The most expensive development corridor project is the first of the nine Trans African Highway projects at USD 78.20 billion (when adjusted for inflation) – comprising transcontinental roads across Africa. We were able to capture the budget (or at least a proportion of the budget) for 84.7% of all projects.

Temporal evolution of growth of development corridors

Investments started in the 1800s and have increased exponentially (Fig. 4). Over a fifty-year period, the greatest number of investments took place between 1950 and 2000. Spikes in investments occurred particularly around 1900, which was when there was a wave of new imperialism across the continent, followed in the 1960s when many countries across sub-Saharan Africa gained independence. The third spike in investment was in the last decade, particularly since 2013, when we have seen rapid growth in foreign direct investment in Africa under initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative. According to the Ernst and Young Africa Attractiveness Survey (2019)⁴⁵, the largest foreign direct investment (in terms of capital) between 2014–2018 came from China (USD 72,235 million), France (USD 34,172 million), USA (USD 30,885 million), the United Arab Emirates (USD 25,278 million) and the United Kingdom (USD 17,768 million).

Donors that are funding development corridors

Across Africa, regional development banks invested the most in development corridors (30.8%), with the African Development Bank funding the majority (24.3%) of all projects. Outside of Africa, the regional development banks that invested in the most projects are the Export-Import Bank of China (n = 13, 3.8%), the European Investment Bank (n = 10, 2.8%) and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (n = 4, 1.2% ea.). National governments funded about 29.8% of all projects. The Government of Kenya funded the most projects (n = 26; 7.5%), followed by the Governments of Tanzania (n = 7, 2.0%) and South Africa (n = 4, 1.2%). Multilateral banks funded 10.9% of projects – mostly from the World Bank (n = 33, 9.54%) and a few from the International Finance Corporation (n = 4, 1.6%). The international development community funded only 6.1% – of which the OPEC Fund for International Development funded four projects. Private companies continue to invest in a small percentage of development corridors (3.5%), but this is higher than national banks that invest in 3.2%. Regional Economic Community bodies have invested in 15 (4.8%) of all 184 projects. The average number of donors per corridor ranged from one to 12.

Weighting of investments by donor type

In terms capital funded per donor type, Regional Development Banks invested the most (totalling USD 30.72 billion), followed by national governments (USD 20.45 billion). The figure then drops substantially to international development agencies (USD6.17 billion) and multilateral banks (USD 3.76 billion). These results are limited by the fact that we were only able to capture the amount funded delineated by donor type for 22.58% (or USD 70.24 billion) of the minimum of all investments (USD 311.14 billion) before adjusting for inflation.

Commodities transported

A total of 147 commodities were captured. The top twenty commodities traded were rice (n = 52, 28.7% of all projects), sugar (27.0%), fish and petroleum (24.3% ea.), passengers (21.6%), textiles (21.1%), maize (19.5%), coffee (18.9%), cement and timber (17.8% ea.) followed by cotton, crude petroleum, vehicle spare parts, beverages, copper, fruit, fertilisers, gold, pharmaceutical products, and tobacco.

Beneficiaries and net supplier or receiver

Approximately 213 different beneficiaries were identified – predominantly local communities (n = 134 of projects, 72.8%), followed by national and local governments (63.0%), traders (51.1%), agricultural farmers and livestock producers (27.7%), ports (27.2%), industries (25.5%), truck drivers (22.3%), tourists (17.4%), entrepreneurs (12.0%), and logistics companies (11.4%). Almost all (89.1%) of corridors are net receivers and suppliers of commodities, while only 13 (7.1%) are net suppliers and seven are net receivers (3.8%).

Source: Ecology - nature.com