One way of dealing with the problem of being landlocked is to re-orient
trade to the regional economy. Efforts at regional integration have a long and
unsuccessful history in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are around 30 Regional
Trade Agreements (RTAs) in Sub-Saharan Africa and each country is a
member on average of four. This overlapping membership generates conflict-
ing obligations, rules and procedures. Agreements have tended to focus on
(unfulfilled) promises to reduce tariff and other barriers to regional trade and
neglected the lack of transport infrastructure (Naude, 2007), and there is little
evidence they have increased intra-African trade. The lack of transport links
between African countries is a longstanding problem dating back to the colo-
nial era (see Chapter 9).
There is a market failure in the construction of most transport links, including
railways and roads, whether oriented towards regional or global trade. Crucial
external benefits arise to a landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa from any
country lying between it and the coast investing in transport infrastructure.
Improving the railway line running across Kenya to the port in Mombasa would
have significant benefits for Uganda. But why should Kenya consider those
external benefits for Uganda? Landlocked Malawi contributed to road rehabili-
tation in Tanzania to ensure better access to the Dar-es-Salaam harbour. There
are other potential gains from cooperation. At present there are four different rail
gauges in use in Africa,making inter-country links harder and creating different
re gulations relating to road transport and customs. The low existing levels of
economic activity in Africa gives little incentive for governments or the private
sector to invest in road infrastructure. The picture changes once externalities are
taken into consideration. The World Bank proposed a 100,000 km trans-Africa
road network to link 83 major African cities. The (direct) cost – $32 billion over
15 years – is small relative to the benefits (including externalities) of increased
trade, estimated at over $250 billion (Naude, 2007).
Regional cooperation to provide transport links such as air traffic control,
border crossings or regulations for road transport can be supported by the inter-
national donor community in various ways. Foreign aid could be targeted to
the greater provision of transport infrastructure with recipient countries agree-
ing to binding commitments to ensure trade facilitation. The international
community should help ensure implementation of and adherence to interna-
tional law on the rights of landlocked countries to access to the sea. Important
existing international agreements include Article V of the GATT, the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982, 1994), and the UN Convention on the
transit of landlocked countries (1965) (Naude, 2007).
The doubling of foreign aid announced at the July 2005 Gleneagles G-8
summit focused on infrastructure, which could eventually generate a massive
construction boom in some developing countries. While potentially overcom-
ing the high transport costs associated with being landlocked, a big donor-
funded push may have a secondary effect in exacerbating problems of bad
governance. Big corrupt money is likely to strengthen the politics of patronage
ov er honest politics and the rule of law (Collier’s ‘survival of the fattest’).
Geography and Economic Resources 247