Horn of Africa sea ports gateway to trade, investment

The Horn of Africa coast is strategically important because it is on the Bab al Mandab Strait and Indian Ocean coast where nearly 20 percent of the world trade and maritime shipping pass through. Thanks to their sea port developments, it is set to be the gateway and the link that connects the sub-Saharan Africa to this international trade route, Suez Canal and the Arabian Peninsula on the opposite side of the Red Sea.

The mercantile shipping vessels plying along the Bab el Mandeb can now drop their transit consignments at any of the Red Sea or Horn of Africa ports. Similarly, export goods from sub-Saharan Africa and their imports from the rest of the world can easily be picked or delivered from these ports and hauled across to central and West Coast of Africa by existing railways or roads.

Recently, the significance of the Horn of Africa and its sea ports was boosted by the discoveries of oil, gas and other extractive minerals in the sub-Saharan Africa countries. Huge exploitations of the same are now in progress in Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, DR Congo and Kenya; among others.

Additionally, the coastal Horn of Africa countries are experiencing a relative peace renaissance that has enabled development of their Ports and Roads developments not realised in the last 50 years. Hitherto, these countries were ravaged by civil and territorial wars, military rules and instabilities that hindered their endeavour to address their national development challenges.

This peace break and political trust is attributed to reconciliations initiated by the Ethiopian Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Abiy Ahmed. He made series of armistice with Eritrea and Somalia, intermediated peace in the internal conflicts of the Sudan and South Sudan.

Landlocked, expansive and populous Ethiopia has strategic interest to access all of these ports on the Horn and the Indian Ocean to serve its international trade.

Port Sudan on the Red Sea Coast has a road and railway connection to Wau in South Sudan, and only three hundred miles’ away from delivery to Kampala by road and to other destinations in DR Congo. This is not only a direct competitive challenge to the Kenya’s LAPPSSET project that has been missioned to serve this part of Africa but will be giving the East African ports on the Indian Ocean a run for their money.

Further, eight developed sea Ports of Eritrean, Djibouti and Somalia on the Red Sea are fully operational and being served by either Railway or Roads through Ethiopia. Shippers can now drop their cargoes destined for interior of Africa in any of these ports and ferried through Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and onward to DR Congo. This in addition to other dozen proposed or operational ports linked to Kenya or Ethiopia along the Somalia’s 3,300km Coast.

The East African ports of Dar es Saalam, Mombasa and Lamu with their relatively ultra-modern combined Standard Gauge railways, roads, oil pipelines and other infrastructures from East African Ports to Uganda and beyond are not a “lunatic lines” but a sensible and strategic must do projects to compete and open up sub-Saharan Africa to boost intra-Africa trade and support needed investments.

The writer is retired Kenyan diplomat.