Project Showcase

The LAPSSET Railway Project forms the railway component of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor. Its approved purpose is to create a new regional rail connection from the Indian Ocean coast through northern Kenya to Ethiopia and South Sudan. The route begins at Lamu Port, runs through Garissa to Isiolo, and then divides into two international branches. One branch continues through Nginyang and Nakodok to Juba in South Sudan, while the other continues through Moyale to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The approved concept also includes a railway connection between Nairobi and Isiolo. The approved regional network is approximately 2,900 km long. The PIDA PAP II submission specifies a 1,435 mm standard gauge and electric-powered railway technology, with design speeds of up to 160 km/h for passenger trains and 120 km/h for freight trains. The planned railway is intended to carry passengers, heavy goods, oil products and other non-pipeline petroleum products, including bulk fuel oil, bitumen and liquefied petroleum gas, between Lamu Port and demand centres along the corridor. These are planned design parameters and must not be reported as completed or operational capacity. The project is regional in both geography and governance. Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan are the member states and project locations recorded in the approved PAP II submission. Uganda is also identified as a beneficiary country. IGAD is the regional economic community and the IGAD Secretariat is identified as the project institution. The project is aligned with Kenya Vision 2030 and the IGAD Regional Infrastructure Master Plan. Implementation will require coordinated technical standards, cross-border operating rules, environmental and social safeguards, land and corridor protection, institutional agreements and financing arrangements across the participating countries. The submitted project-cost baseline is USD 12.0 billion. This amount should remain the historical PAP II baseline until a later consolidated cost is supported by an approved regional study. The approved-project record identifies S2A - Pre-Feasibility as the last known milestone. The PIDA Investment Prospectus status history also records Pre-Feasibility in 2020, 2022 and 2024. These dated status entries should control the historical annual records rather than retrospectively applying the current feasibility label. The current PIDA Investment Prospectus displays the project at Feasibility, or 50 percent progress. It identifies the remaining work as completion of comprehensive feasibility studies across the project, mobilisation of technical assistance for detailed designs, establishment of a corridor-coordination mechanism, completion of environmental and social assessments, development of PPP frameworks and securing of financing commitments. Contractors and operators remain to be determined through competitive procurement after project structuring and financing. Other LAPSSET investments must not be used as evidence of railway construction. Progress on Lamu Port, highways, pipelines, airports, resort cities, the refinery, the multipurpose dam or communications systems belongs to separate components of the wider corridor.

The Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline is a proposed international gas pipeline corridor intended to move Nigerian gas northward through Niger to Algeria, where it would connect to existing Mediterranean export infrastructure. The database contains both a regional Trans-Sahara record and a Nigeria-section record; these should be treated as related components, not independent additive projects.The project has a long history, dating back to early Nigeria-Algeria cooperation and renewed through trilateral Nigeria-Niger-Algeria ministerial processes. Recent sources report renewed agreements to update feasibility work and accelerate the project. The strategic case is gas monetisation, regional energy security and potential exports to Europe, but security, financing, reserve commitment, competing pipeline routes and energy-transition demand risks remain material.Validation note: public sources commonly cite total project costs in the USD 10-20 billion range, with recent reporting around USD 13 billion. The database capex values for ID 2004 and ID 762 should be checked to avoid double counting the regional pipeline and Nigeria section.Sources reviewed: Global Energy Monitor, Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline, https://www.gem.wiki/Trans-Sahara_Gas_Pipeline; Pipeline Journal, Algeria, Nigeria and Niger sign agreements to advance TSGP, https://www.pipeline-journal.net/news/algeria-nigeria-niger-sign-agreements-advance-trans-saharan-gas-pipeline-project; Flyvbjerg et al., What causes cost overrun in transport infrastructure projects, https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4476.

The VICMED initiative proposes an integrated navigation and multimodal transport corridor from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea. It is intended to connect Nile Basin countries through river, lake and supporting land-transport infrastructure and to improve access for landlocked countries to international ports and markets. The project's expected benefits include lower-cost movement of goods, improved regional trade and tourism, employment creation and stronger economic integration. It also requires careful assessment of water-resource, environmental, social, navigational and institutional implications across a large transboundary basin. The prefeasibility study, which involved consultation with the footprint countries, was completed in 2015 and approved in 2017 by the 3rd Steering Committee for VICMED. The feasibility study Phase 1 was completed in July 2019 and was funded through a US$650,000 grant from AfDB. It involved the development of an institutional and legal framework for VICMED and conducting a training needs assessment. It also involved preparing the terms of reference for Feasibility Study Phase 2 and carrying out training for countries on inland water transport, which took place in February.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) Phase II is a multi-billion Maloti/Rand bi-national infrastructure project between the Governments of the Kingdom of Lesotho and the Republic of South Africa, established under the 1986 Treaty and the 2011 Phase II Agreement. Phase II is designed to augment water delivery to South Africa and increase hydropower generation capacity in Lesotho. The project is implemented by the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) on behalf of Lesotho and the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) on behalf of South Africa. The core infrastructure components of Phase II include: (1) The Polihali Dam, a 165 m high concrete-faced rockfill (CFRD) embankment dam located downstream of the confluence of the Senqu and Khubelu Rivers in the Mokhotlong district, which will create a reservoir with a surface area of 5,053 ha and a storage capacity of 2,325 million cubic metres; (2) A 50 m high saddle dam; (3) The Polihali-Katse Transfer Tunnel, a 38.2 km long, 5 m diameter gravity tunnel connecting the Polihali reservoir to the Katse reservoir, being excavated by two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) simultaneously from both ends; (4) The Oxbow Hydropower Scheme on the Malibamatso River, with an installed capacity of 80.3 MW and an average annual output of 180 GWh, currently at detailed engineering design phase with commissioning slated for 2030/31; and (5) Advance infrastructure including roads, bridges (including the 825 m long, 90 m high Senqu Bridge), high-tension power lines, telecommunications systems, accommodation and construction facilities. Phase II will increase the current annual water supply rate from 780 million cubic metres to approximately 1,270 million cubic metres per annum, adding 490 million cubic metres per year to South Africa's Integrated Vaal River System. Water delivery is targeted for financial year 2028/2029, with reservoir inundation planned for 2027. As of late 2025, overall project completion stood at approximately 48%, with dam construction at 37% complete. The Katse TBM was launched on 15 January 2025 and the Polihali TBM arrived on site in July 2025 and began excavation in January 2026.

This project covers the Senegal portion of the Dakar-Ndjamena-Djibouti Road/ Railway project. This is a multimodal transboundary transport corridor including Senegal, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti. It is a combination of the Trans-African Highway 5 (Dakar to N’djamena) and 6 (N’djamena to Djibouti), a combined distance covered of 8,715 km.  However over time, the railway transport route between Dakar and Bamako has become degraded and and created hindrances in the international services for passenger transportation. In order to improve the competitiveness of the route, the two states financed a study in order to define the best way to finance or to participate in the funding of the Dakar- Bamako railway infrastructure upgrade. The project will have the following components: Rehabilitation of the platform and reconstruction of the engineering works to 22.5 tons / axle; Railway rehabilitation (main roads and service roads) Implementation of a train cantonment system and a telecommunications system in line with UIC railway standards; Acquisition of rolling stock and railway equipment; Development and renovation of station facilities. The Dakar-Bamako Rail Project has been prioritised by the Government of Senegal as the first of three phases of the Project. It entails the rehabilitation of the existing railway network between Dakar and Bamako (1,228 km), with a total project cost of US$ 2.2 billion.

The project includes the construction of a road and rail bridge between Brazzaville in Congo and Kinshasa in the DRC. The project also includes road and rail links in both countries as well as joint border control points (One Stop Border Posts). A border control post will be located at each end of the bridge and will house border control officers. Inspections will only be conducted on one side of the river (i.e. on the departure side). The existing road infrastructure will be extended by 10km to connect the bridge to the two cities. The railway bridge will have a total length of 1 575m and 10 bays divided as follows: 2 bays of 120m, 4 bays of 152m, 2 bays of 242m and two bays of 121.5m. The profile on the other side of the road consists of two unidirectional sidewalks with two lanes of 3m. The total width of the road, including sidewalks, is 16.24 m. The two large cable-stayed spans (242m and 152m), located in the river along the banks, give the bridge a gateway to the capitals. The bridge will be located in Maloukou Trechot, 6km from the city of Maluku in Congo. The site is 55km from the two capitals along the river. The bridge is part of a larger project, the Kinshasa-Ilebo railway project, which aims to improve the rail network in Africa. The larger project is expected to contribute to increased regional trade and accelerate regional integration between Central and Southern Africa. The project is expected to allow for cheaper and faster river crossing by passengers and freight. The beneficiaries of the project will therefore include the two countries whose fisci will benefit from increased trade, the increased presence of domestic and foreign companies in both countries, from private transporters and the economic and social benefits of liberated movement of both populations

The Ntem River Bridge is intended to close a major missing link between Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea on the Kribi-Campo-Bata road corridor. It will support a continuous regional route connecting Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon and improve access to ports, border areas and national road networks. The approved technical scope consists of a 972 m prestressed-concrete box-girder bridge constructed by successive cantilevers. It includes a two-way seven-metre carriageway, cycle tracks and pedestrian walkways, approximately 933 m of approach road towards Campo in Cameroon and 600 m towards Rio Campo in Equatorial Guinea, as well as environmental and social measures. Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are the project-location countries, while Gabon is a beneficiary through the wider Yaoundé-Bata-Libreville economic corridor. ECCAS is the regional institution responsible for corridor coordination. The PAP II estimate is USD 447.3 million excluding taxes and customs duties but including physical and financial contingencies. This value represents the complete approved project, not merely a study or one national access-road component. AfDB approved the regional transport and trade-facilitation project in 2023 and provided financing through sovereign operations involving the participating states. Approval of finance supports S3B, but it does not by itself prove that procurement or physical construction has begun. Official project reporting reviewed through 2025 continued to show the operation as active.

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The design for the LAPSSET higway components provide for a heavy transportation route from Lamu to South Sudan through Garissa, Isiolo, Kisima and Nginyang to meet the existing Kenya - South Sudan road at Lokichar, from where it continues to the border at Nadapal. The Lamu - Isiolo - Lokichar - Lodwar - Nadapal section measures about 1,300 km. The Northern Branch of the corridor to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is the Isiolo- Moyale section which is also part of LAPSSET Corridor road. Construction on this section has been completed and the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) construction is currently underway. The project is divided into four sections as follows: Lamu - Garissa  Road -263km Garissa-Isiolo Road - 305km Isiolo - Nginyang Road - 212km Nginyang - Lokichar - Nadapal - 533km NB: The Government of Kenya is currently working on the re-alignment of Isiolo-Nginyang-Lokichar Section). The new aligned section takes the route: Isiolo-Lareta-Maralal-Baragoi-Lokori-Lokichar). Other sections remain the same.

The design for the LAPSSET higway components provide for a heavy transportation route from Lamu to South Sudan through Garissa, Isiolo, Kisima and Nginyang to meet the existing Kenya - South Sudan road at Lokichar, from where it continues to the border at Nadapal. The Lamu - Isiolo - Lokichar - Lodwar - Nadapal section measures about 1,300 km. The Northern Branch of the corridor to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is the Isiolo- Moyale section which is also part of LAPSSET Corridor road. Construction on this section has been completed and the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) construction is currently underway. The project is divided into four sections as follows: Lamu - Garissa  Road -263km Garissa-Isiolo Road - 305km Isiolo - Nginyang Road - 212km Nginyang - Lokichar - Nadapal - 533km NB: The Government of Kenya is currently working on the re-alignment of Isiolo-Nginyang-Lokichar Section). The new aligned section takes the route: Isiolo-Lareta-Maralal-Baragoi-Lokori-Lokichar). Other sections remain the same.

The design for the LAPSSET higway components provide for a heavy transportation route from Lamu to South Sudan through Garissa, Isiolo, Kisima and Nginyang to meet the existing Kenya - South Sudan road at Lokichar, from where it continues to the border at Nadapal. The Lamu - Isiolo - Lokichar - Lodwar - Nadapal section measures about 1,300 km. The Northern Branch of the corridor to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is the Isiolo- Moyale section which is also part of LAPSSET Corridor road. Construction on this section has been completed and the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) construction is currently underway. The project is divided into four sections as follows: Lamu - Garissa  Road -263km Garissa-Isiolo Road - 305km Isiolo - Nginyang Road - 212km Nginyang - Lokichar - Nadapal - 533km NB: The Government of Kenya is currently working on the re-alignment of Isiolo-Nginyang-Lokichar Section). The new aligned section takes the route: Isiolo-Lareta-Maralal-Baragoi-Lokori-Lokichar). Other sections remain the same.

The design for the LAPSSET higway components provide for a heavy transportation route from Lamu to South Sudan through Garissa, Isiolo, Kisima and Nginyang to meet the existing Kenya - South Sudan road at Lokichar, from where it continues to the border at Nadapal. The Lamu - Isiolo - Lokichar - Lodwar - Nadapal section measures about 1,300 km. The Northern Branch of the corridor to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia is the Isiolo- Moyale section which is also part of LAPSSET Corridor road. Construction on this section has been completed and the One Stop Border Post (OSBP) construction is currently underway. The project is divided into four sections as follows: Lamu - Garissa  Road -263km Garissa-Isiolo Road - 305km Isiolo - Nginyang Road - 212km Nginyang - Lokichar - Nadapal - 533km NB: The Government of Kenya is currently working on the re-alignment of Isiolo-Nginyang-Lokichar Section). The new aligned section takes the route: Isiolo-Lareta-Maralal-Baragoi-Lokori-Lokichar). Other sections remain the same.