Why this project?

The Djibouti Corridor is a major trade gateway for Ethiopia, handling 90% of Ethiopia total Trade. Every day, over 4000 trucks ply across the corridor moving different types of goods from humanitarian goods to agricultural inputs. Authorities and key players in both Ethiopia and Djibouti highlight the various barriers across the corridor such as unnecessary delays of trucks at the port of Djibouti, PK 12 and PK51, congestion at PK12, lack of coordination among logistics sector player, unharmonised legal framework in the transport sector and massive infrastructure gaps on the Djibouti side

Subsequently, this results to high costs of trade in terms of money and time. For example, currently trucks on the corridor make an average of 2.5 trips per month against targeted six trips per month.

What:

Extensive stakeholder consultations point out that one way of addressing some of the above challenges would be putting up a corridor management and coordination framework; through establishment and operationalising of the Corridor Management Authority comprised of both Ethiopia and Djibouti stakeholders. The Authority will work closely with corridor stakeholders to coordinate operations on the corridor and will be critical in identifying bottlenecks that arise and leading in their resolution.

For effective operations of the CMA, the partners will be supported to develop appropriate tools for measuring and evaluating performance of the corridor. Consequently, proposing measures and actions that should be taken to improve and maintain corridor performance and at the same time ensure proper coordination of stakeholders.

By forming and activating technical committees within the Corridor Management Authority, sector specific challenges on Trade Facilitation, Digitisation and infrastructure will be resolved in a timely manner.
A critical arm of the programme will be continuous research which will enable stakeholders including governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti, donors and users of the corridor to understand and resolve issues that affect performance of the corridor i.e decongesting of PK12

How:

The project targets to undertake a number of interventions including:

1. Provision of technical assistance to support the Ministry of Infrastructure and Equipment roll out and implement better corridor management and coordination mechanisms such as operationalisation of the Corridor Management Authority.
2. Develop and roll out corridor performance measurement tools and put in place mechanism ensuring productivity is improved and maintained.
3. Facilitation of technical committee to convene stakeholders and devise solutions to resolve challenges affecting the corridor
4. Undertake technical and financial feasibility studies on  establishment of a truck marshalling yard in Djibouti to  decongesting PK12   and attract private investment.

Contact:

Email: Sjoerd Visser Sjoerd.visser@trademakea.com