Summary: Investing in Africa's infrastructure: European Commission pledges €30m for key roads in Tanzania (Brussels, 23 June 2006)
The European Commission has approved €30 million for the final stage of a major road upgrading programme in Tanzania. The programme will improve connections between Dar-es-Salaam and Tanzania's second city, Mwanza. The upgrading will reduce transport costs on East Africa's central corridor, so more people have access to markets and trade links in the region. The programme builds on more than €170 million that the EU has invested in Tanzania's roads since 2002, and is part of a wider strategy to build infrastructure links that connect countries throughout Africa.
The programme will upgrade the sections of the road between the Mwanza and Tinde, and between Nzega and Isaka. The road forms part of East Africa's central corridor which links the Tanzanian capital, Dar-es-Salaam, to the country's fastest developing city, Mwanza, and to neighbouring Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The Commission is working with several partners, including the Tanzanian Roads Agency, to deliver the project, which should be completed by the end of 2007.
Strengthening infrastructure and connections across Africa are principle aims in the EU's Africa Strategy, adopted by the European Council in December 2005. The Strategy proposes an EU-Africa Partnership for Infrastructure which the Commission will finalise next month. The partnership will initiate and support programmes that build trans-African connections, and invest in infrastructure that crosses borders, such as: roads, railways, ports, airports, water and energy infrastructure, and ICTs.
This investment in Tanzania is part of a wider plan by governments and donors in East Africa to develop a network of fully asphalted main roads and to ring-fence money to fund future maintenance. These roads will help generate the growth and trade needed to alleviate poverty. Without EU support, Tanzania's government would have had to source the extra funding itself, possibly at the expense of other key projects in other sectors such as education or health.
For further information on the EU-Africa Strategy, please see IP/05/1260 and
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/development/body/communications/eu_africa_strategy_en.htm
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