Transport in Africa is thirty times more expensive than on other continents. It is this observation of under-equipment which will have marked the colloquium of the new Franco-African maritime partnership! This ...

The African river, a new route

Audio 02:30

Boats on the Oubangui river near Bangui, RCA.

Veronique DURRUTY / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

By: Marina Mielczarek

7 min

Transport in Africa is thirty times more expensive than on other continents.

It is this observation of under-equipment which will have marked the colloquium of the new Franco-African maritime partnership!

This conference was held last summer on the internet and remains visible on the website of CMAF, the Maritime Cluster of French-speaking Africa.

A collaboration of French and African experts who will shape water transport for the coming century.

The birth of this new partnership did not make the headlines, yet this maritime transport cluster will play a major role.

One of its priorities will be to develop African rivers.

Publicity

It is at night in the Republic of Congo on the Congo River that there are serious accidents, with deaths every year.

Darkness makes obstacles including falls and eddies of currents invisible.

And that's not all, there is also fraud with pilots without a navigation license, abandoned banks that are collapsing but above all there is the weight of overloaded boats ... a bit of everything, animals , goods and passengers.

African rivers have been abandoned in favor of roads, they must be developed to decongest cities

Marie Cécile Grisard is the director of the Initiative for the Future of Large Rivers association.

This river transport expert travels to all continents of the world to help countries secure and develop their river transport.

It returns from Senegal where the river of the same name, the Senegal River, winds over 1,700 km through four neighboring countries:

“

This project led by OMVS, the Organization for the Development of the Senegal River,

” she explains, “

is an ambitious project.
This involves creating and upgrading 905 km of channel with bridges and docks between the port of Saint-Louis at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean and the Malian port of Ambidedi.
It is a question of using this river and its transport, she specifies in a broader perspective.
Our approach considers river transport as a factor of peace between the four countries it crosses (Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Mali) but also as a development lever for local populations by improving fishing conditions and water supply. sweet.
I remain convinced that environmental protection goes hand in hand with this project.
It will be, she

concludes,

to enhance the transport of agricultural and mineral raw materials while saving time and efficiency.
This is why we welcome the OMVS project because at the same time, it is the tourism sector that will benefit from it, we must encourage this tourist economy in Africa.

The CMAF (French-speaking African Maritime Cluster) encourages the construction of dry ports, relay platforms between rivers and the sea

Applauded (on the screen remotely on the internet) during this first CMAF webconference, Doctor Alioun Abi Taleb Nguer, teacher at Cheikh-Anta-Diop University in Dakar and former director of the National School of Maritime Training of transport, explains that the example of the Senegal River development project is a good project but that it will only succeed if the quays and banks are equipped with storage means.

The example of the Nordic countries in Europe has proved it, in Germany or in the Netherlands, the banks are fitted out with warehouses connected to roads and railways.

Moreover, as explained by Dr. Alioun Abi Taleb Nguer, this would avoid this waste of money and time observed today by a lack of connections between villages, towns, rivers and ports:

“

By tradition, for millennia, transport on rivers has existed in Africa.
From the Nile, to Niger, to the Senegal or Congo river, trade was flourishing but only here, because of successive droughts and a certain political carelessness, the politicians were unable to maintain or develop this transport.
Many credits went to road transport, forgetting the river.
To make this river transport attractive, it will have to be connected to roads and our railways and of course to ports.
For this, countries will have to attract investors.

River transport to attract tourists

The coronavirus crisis has shown that when borders or roads are closed, rivers can carry raw materials.

And because this health crisis will end well one day, African countries have every interest in considering their rivers as tourist assets.

Politicians seem to have understood this, transport is on the agenda of the next Africa-France summit, scheduled for last June and postponed (date still unknown) as a precautionary measure, in 2021.

Transport chronicle - The African river, a new route

The African river, a new route

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest