The African Development Bank Group is providing $301 million to refit the Kampala-Malaba meter gauge railway (MGR) in Uganda. The railway is part of the North Corridor of the East African Community that links the capital, Kampala, with the coastal city of Mombasa, in Kenya.
The East African Community Railway Rehabilitation Support Project will strengthen rail services and reduce transportation costs in a region endowed with agricultural land, mineral, and oil production and manufacturing.
The financing approved Wednesday by the Group’s Board of Directors consists of loans and grants from the African Development Bank and its concessional lending window, the African Development Fund.
The works involve the immediate rehabilitation of 265 km of MGR track between Malaba and Mukono, including the line to Jinja wharf and Port Bell on Lake Victoria.
The project incorporates training and skills development for the railway workforce. It will also integrate nature-based solutions, including tree planting, to improve the climate resilience of roads.
During the Board’s approval, African Development Bank Group President Akinwumi Adesina said that “rail lines are critical to opening up the heart of Africa, where there is immense agricultural and economic potential.” He said the railways would also be essential to connect the rural-based Special Agricultural Processing Zones, which the African Development Bank is promoting, with markets and other vital logistics hubs. “Rail lines should not just connect the ports to the mines,” Adesina said. He added that it is encouraging to see African governments investing in rail transport. The project was endorsed by the Ugandan cabinet and parliament.
The Kampala-Malaba MGR is part of the Northern Corridor multimodal route, which includes road transport from Mombasa in Kenya to landlocked Uganda and neighboring countries including Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The corridor also has shipping links to the inland waterways of Lake Victoria.
Rail is considered a safer and more affordable mode of transportation than road, but currently, more than 90% of traffic along the northern corridor is by road, and only 7% travels by rail due to poor infrastructure . As a result, transportation costs along the corridor are comparatively high.
The project is expected to directly benefit almost 1.2 million people, around 40% of them women.
The project is aligned with Uganda’s Vision 2040 national strategy, as well as the East African Community’s Vision 2050, which aims to deepen trade and transform East Africa into a globally competitive upper-middle-income region. The East African Community Railway Rehabilitation Support Project also advances the African Union Agenda 2063 and three of the top 5 operational priorities of the African Development Bank: Integrating Africa, Industrializing Africa and Improving the quality of life of the peoples of Africa.
