A USD3.15 million grant to prepare a road enhancement project aimed at boosting transport and trade between interior areas of East Africa and Kenya’s Port of Mombasa was approved by the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) Governing Committee during its meeting in Beijing on 25 November. The project will be implemented by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The MCDF grant will finance a feasibility study for the public-private partnership (PPP) project, to upgrade a 243-kilometer stretch of road between Mau Summit, a town in western Kenya with improving road access to Mombasa via Nairobi, and the border town of Malaba, a gateway to neighboring Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, northwestern Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi.
The feasibility study will assess the project’s technical viability, resilience to climate and engineering risks, environmental and social safeguards, and tolling affordability. It will also foster a transparent, bankable PPP aligned with International Financial Institution standards and able to mobilize substantial private investment as well as prepare the project’s PPP structure, contract, and tendering documents.
The MCDF-supported feasibility study will build on the findings of a pre-feasibility study currently being financed by AIIB and follows the Government of Kenya’s formal request for support to advance the Mau Summit-Malaba road project’s preparation.
It will pave the way for AIIB’s first standalone investment in Kenya and first PPP structuring in Africa, delivering road enhancements that can reduce accidents, ease traffic congestion, minimize truck idling and carbon emissions, and facilitate trade by lowering transport time and cost along the Mau Summit-Malaba route, part of the Trans-African Highway Network.
Contact
David Hendrickson
Senior Communications Officer
Mobile: +86 185 0114 6758
david.hendrickson@themcdf.org
