Africa is investing again in railways, from the Lobito Corridor to East African standard-gauge lines and North African high-speed networks. Yet laying more track does not automatically create an integrated continental transport system.
A new cooperation framework between the African Development Bank and Germany is focusing on one of the less visible constraints: how to make railway systems work across borders through interoperability, skills, coordinated standards and stronger institutions.
From national projects to regional networks
The African Development Bank and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development have signed a letter of intent to cooperate on railway development, with objectives including lower transport costs, better cross-border interoperability, low-carbon transport and workforce development.
The first step will be a joint feasibility study for an African Rail Competence Center, implemented by GIZ and expected to launch in October 2026. The proposed centre would focus on innovation and training.
That is an important distinction: the competence centre is currently a feasibility-stage initiative, not a newly financed physical rail network.
Interoperability is infrastructure too
Railways can struggle to deliver regional trade benefits when networks use incompatible technical standards, border procedures are slow, operating rules differ or rolling stock cannot move efficiently between systems.
Those constraints become more important under the African Continental Free Trade Area. Lower tariffs alone cannot create efficient continental commerce if moving goods between markets remains slow or expensive.
A growing portfolio of corridors
The AfDB points to its involvement in the Lobito Corridor, East Africa’s standard-gauge railway programme, the Nacala Corridor, Algeria’s North–South Rail Corridor, Morocco’s high-speed rail system and urban rail investments in Senegal and Nigeria.
These projects serve different markets and purposes. The strategic opportunity is to ensure that individual investments increasingly connect into reliable trade corridors rather than remaining isolated national assets.
Skills are part of the railway gap
The new cooperation also emphasises skills transfer, vocational training and employment. Modern railway systems require engineers, signalling specialists, maintenance technicians, operators, planners and regulators alongside construction capital.
That makes institutional and human capacity a core infrastructure issue. Africa’s railway challenge is not simply the size of the network; it is whether infrastructure, operating systems and professional capability can combine to move freight and passengers efficiently across borders.
The AfCFTA test
The AfDB says Africa’s rail network accounts for only about 8–10% of the global total. But network length alone is an incomplete measure. For continental trade, reliability, interoperability, cost and connections to ports, industrial zones and logistics systems matter just as much.
The new AfDB-Germany framework is therefore best understood as an attempt to address the connective tissue of railway development. Whether it ultimately improves cross-border rail performance will depend on what follows the feasibility studies and cooperation commitments.
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