MCDF Grant Supports Railway Development to Connect Tanzania, Burundi, and Neighboring Countries

A USD525,000 grant to support the development of East Africa’s Central Corridor rail infrastructure, to connect Tanzania, Burundi, and neighboring countries and unlock trade and economic opportunities in underserved areas, was approved by the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) Governing Committee during its meeting in Beijing on 22 October. The grant will be managed by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Activities financed by the MCDF grant will help prepare the construction of a 651-kilometer (km) single-track, electrified standard gauge railway (SGR) that consists of three segments, between Tagora and Kigoma (411km) and Uvinza and Malagarasi (156km) in Tanzania and between Malagarasi and Musongati (84km) in Burundi. It is the second of two phases of Central Corridor SGR section development and will link with the first phase that extends to Tanzania’s port of Dar es Salaam.

The MCDF grant will fund the updating of the phase two SGR project’s technical feasibility studies that were conducted in 2020 but need to be revised and expanded to cover the project’s Tagora-Kigoma and Uvinza-Malagarai segments (lots). The grant will also support the review of the project’s existing environmental and social impact assessment, with a focus on these same two lots.

These activities will help to de-risk all three phase two SGR project lots and enhance the overall bankability of the SGR project, attract public and private cofinancing, and preserve the beneficiary countries’ concessional resources which are all needed to make the project a reality.

It will in turn serve as a foundation for multimodal transport development and regional integration. The aim is to boost passenger traffic, agricultural and industrial sector growth, and trade flows that further extend to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda and ultimately connect the Central Corridor with the Northern Transport Corridor anchored in the port of Mombasa in Kenya.