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CETUD U A T P U I T P TRANSPORT RESEARCH
ARENA Second European Road Transport research
Arena Ljubljana, Slovenia, 21-24 April
2008 Sustainable viability of transport systems
in Sub-Saharan Africa
which reforms? Dr. Ing. Ousmane THIAM Président
du CETUD
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• CONTEXT
• The sustainability of the transport systems
  remains a constant concern for the public
  authorities and others socio-economical actors in
  Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The question of financing infrastructures and
  quality transport services is still without a
  sustainable solution, despite the attempts of
  numerous reforms supported by partners to the
  development.
• It is true that the reforms are not always
  carried out in a global perspective, comprising
  the different dimensions of the problematic of
  mobility in the African context.

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• 1 Marginalisation in globalisation
• Sub-Saharan Africa, despite its 11 of the world
  total population in 2002 and its 7 contribution
  at the world energy production, is still
  marginalised in the dynamic of the globalization
  of the exchanges.
• - less than 3 of exportations
• - 3 of energy consumption
• - more than 340 millions of inhabitants with less
  than one dollar per day
• Reforms carried out during the 80 and 90 decades
  in view of the reorganisation of public finances
  and the competitiveness of African countries,
  which have notably led to the devaluation of CFA
  francs in January 1994, have not yet produced the
  expected effects in a long term. The challenges
  of a sustainable democratisation and peace, of
  reduction of poverty, of struggle against social
  exclusion, of rationalisation of behaviours and
  enhancement of African economies competitiveness
  are still actual.

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• 2 Precariousness of the transport system
• The transport systems in Sub-Saharan Africa,
  then are characterised by a continual degradation
  of the infrastructure and transport services,
  notably due to their economical conception
  reducing quality, have not been spared by the
  reforms of the 80s and 90s .
• The efforts have been made regarding the
  modernisation of the administration in charge of
  the roads and transport, the optimisation of
  works for both infrastructures maintenance and
  production of the transport service, the
  commitment of the private sector and the
  mobilisation of the financial resources.
• However, we shall point out that some important
  gaps still exist between Africa and developed
  areas or even emerging ones
• - Road density 24 times less important
• - Railways density 100 times less consistent
• - Cost of goods transport of 2 to 3 times more
• To this, we must add the costs of the urban
  transport failures very high, from 3.3 to 4.5
  of the GDP according to some studies carried out
  in various capitals Dakar, Abidjan, Kampala
  notably.

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• METHODOLOGY
• The persistence of the failures at the origin of
  the lack of performance implies some reflections
  on the relevance or realism of the reforms, on
  the level of commitment of the actors and on
  their ability to change.
• So, reforms will be examined at the regional,
  national and urban level and at each level,
  relatively to the institutional and financial
  frame, of the network of transport.

• REFORMS AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL
• The regional integration remains a challenge to
  face. Is it a slogan for politics or an
  operational concept? In brief, the reforms target
  more the institutional level.

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• 1 Institutional frame
• The Regional Economical Communities (REC) have
  met a lot of difficulties for the harmonisation
  of policies and development strategies for
  transport sector. To try to stabilize the
  transports cost and reduce it, some corridors
  have been implemented with the support of
  Sub-Saharan Africa of transport program policy (
  SSATP). It is the case of
• East Africa, with the North Corridor across
  Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania , Burundi and Rwanda
  (project during the 2005-2009 period)
• Southern Africa, with the Maputo corridor
  between Mozambique and South-Africa, the
  Trans-Kabari corridor across Namibia, South
  Africa and Botswana. For this last corridor
  managed by Walvis Bay corridor group
  (public-private partnership) the traffic tripled
  during the 1993-2003 period.
• In addition, the introduction into the African
  Union of the organs of the new partnership for
  Africa development ( NEPAD) created on 11th July
  2001 in Lusaka, remains a problem Adding, the
  total absence of schemes for the well
  coordination between the REC themselves on one
  hand and between the countries and the REC on the
  other hand.

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• 2 Financial level
• The procedures that governs most of the financial
  institution acknowledge the countries and not the
  REC. Since then, with the limits encountered at
  the institutional level, the mobilisation of the
  financial resources aiming at the achievement of
  programs and projects for regional integration
  is difficult.
• Therefore, the implementation of the short term
  action plan of NEPAD with 124 projects on the
  2002-2005 period got some mitigated results.
• - 30 of financing got
• - 10 of projects financed
• The study on a NEPAD fund is foreseen.

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• 3 Transport Networks
• There are characterized today by
• - a lack of integration of roads and railways
  networks
• - a discontinuity of the continental road
  networks and a poor level of service out of 9
  transcontinental corridors representing about
  50.700 km, the missing parts are estimated at
  25,5.
• - A huge number of control points from various
  administrations (Customs, Forest, Army, Police,
  Health) from 27 on the Niger Burkina axis up
  to 56 on the Niger-Ghana axis per journey,
  penalises the transport of goods according to a
  UEMOA Survey in October 2003.
• So in the REC where corridors and observatories
  are not institutionalised, the failures are
  reaching some alarming levels.
• This situation puts ahead the problem of the
  level of commitment of authorities, awareness of
  public administrations and agents responsible for
  the controls.

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• REFORMS AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL
• The reforms target more institutional and
  financial frames
• 1 Institutional frame
• The reforms were especially on
• - the creation of organisations in charge of
  coordinate of the settlement and the follow up
  of transport sectorial programs with a important
  road aspect.
• - The creation of 15 road agencies in charge of
  the implementation of the programs and projects
  regarding maintenance and development of
  networks, with wider autonomy ad resources.
• - The modernisation of terrestrial transport
  departments with a good example in Abidjan.
• One of the problems is the frustration of those
  departments without any mean in comparison to the
  importance of their missions of public service
  mainly consisting in support for policies
  definition, planning of infrastructures
  development, regulation and control.

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• 2 Financial frame
• The first generation road funds (budget
  allowance) are more and more replaced by second
  generation road maintenance funds (FER 2)
  provided by a fee on the use of the
  infrastructures perceived on petroleum products.
  27 countries put it in place.
• Transparency is compulsory in the management of
  the funds.
• The state, the private sector and the civil
  society participatte to the adoption of road
  maintenance program and to the control of the use
  of the mobilized resources to this effect.
• With the transport sectorial programs the
  partners to the development participate to the
  financing of the rehabilitation of the
  infrastructures.

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• 3 Transports networks
• With the coming of FER 2 , the level of roads
  maintenance has been improved, specially at the
  interurban level.
• But the amelioration of the level of the
  infrastructures service is not followed with a
  scheme of rejuvenation of the public transport
  fleets, either persons transport than goods, with
  still and advanced age of the fleet (in general
  more than 15 years average)
• Some countries such as Mali have facilitate for
  the operators of goods transport sector, access
  for financing of their fleets, taxes reductions
  for some strategic reasons (hydrocarbon
  transport) .

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• REFORMS ON URBAN LEVEL (INSTITUTIONAL FRAME)
• Organising and/or regulating transport
  authorities for urban transports were created in
  Dakar (Senegal) in 1997, Abidjan (Côte dIvoire)
  in 2000 and Lagos (Nigeria) in 2003.
• Others agglomeration are waiting for the
  creation of their transport authority
  Johannesburg, South Africa in 2008, Ouagadougou
  in Burkina Faso, Conakry in Guinea, very soon.
• These authorities are real platforms of
  partnership where the State, the local
  communities, the private sector and the civil
  society meet in a perspective of a sustainable
  mobility.

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• OPPORTUNITIES OF COOPERATION
• Today , all Africans together, are know aware of
  the capital necessity to promote high-level
  transport systems for the competitiveness of
  African economy.
• The various declarations of Africans ministers of
  transports and infrastructures in April 2005 in
  Addis-Abeba , in November 2005 in Bamako, in
  October 2007 in Durban, are perfects examples.
• With some political wills, processes are engaged
  we have to avoid the mistakes of the past, by
  capitalizing the lessons drawn from various
  reforms or initiatives taken to improve in a
  sustainable way the conditions of moving for
  persons and goods

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• 1 Sharing of experiences
• A lot of exchange frame already exist and
  organises regularly forums.
• It is the case of
• - SITRASS ( International Solidarity for the
  Saharan Africa) supported by the French
  cooperation notably.
• - UATP ( African Association of Public
  Transport), regional division of International
  Union of Publics Transport ( UITP)
• - SSATP ( Sub-Saharan African policies program
  in transports) with the support of the European
  Commission, the World Bank, Denmark, France,
  Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the Islamic Bank of
  Development, the African Bank of Development and
  the United Nations Economic Commissions for
  Africa.
• - CODATU (Cooperation for the Development and
  Planning of Urban Transport).
• - AIPC( World Road Association)
• It will be interesting to seek favourable ways
  and means to create a synergy from these various
  organizations for the great benefit of the
  mobility actors, in the context of such a rarity
  of resources.

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• 2 Capacities building
• The sustainability of the transport systems in
  Sub-Saharan Africa requires permanent capacities
  building the public and private actors. The
  efforts should continue, and well target,
  according to challenges to achieve and the lack
  observed.
• The actions could be carried out on study tours,
  trainings on site or outside, achievement of the
  common studies or research programs.
• Concerning the organisations for trainings, some
  ambitions are expressed in South Africa, in Cote
  dIvoire and Senegal.
• As much as possible, the structures should have
  at least a sub-regional vocation and be
  complementary each other. The Professional
  Training Center of the SOTRA group in Abidjan and
  the University Center of Research and Mobility
  Studies (CUREM), from this point of view are
  complementary.
• The CUREM is the result of a partnership between
  CETUD (Organising Transport Authority), the
  Cheikk Amta Diop University of Dakar and the
  Inter-University Center of Research on Mobility
  (CIEM) of Bruxelles

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Thank you for your attention