Transport prices for most African landlocked countries range from 15 to 20 percent of import costs. This is approximately two to three times more than in most developed countries. It is well known that weak infrastructure can account for low trade performance. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand what types of regional transport services operate in landlocked African nations and it is critical to identify the regulation disparities and provision anomalies that hurt infrastructure efficiency, even when the physical infrastructure, such as a road transport corridor, exists.‘Transport Prices and Costs in Africa’ analyzes the various reasons for poor transport performance seen widely throughout Africa and provides a compelling case for a number of national and regional reforms that are vital to the effort to address the underlying causes of high transport prices and costs and service unpredictability seen in Africa. The book will greatly help supervisory authorities throughout the region develop and implement a comprehensive transport policy that will facilitate long-term growth.

Transport Prices and Costs in Africa: A Review of the Main International Corridors (Directions in Development - Infrastructure)

Business & Money

The World Bank

Raballand, Gaël

Teravaninthorn, Supee

Economics

World Bank Publications

'The Cost of Being Landlocked' proposes a new analytical framework to interpret and model the constraints faced by logistics chains on international trade corridors. The plight of landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) has naturally received special attention for decades, leading to a specific set of development priorities based upon the concept of dependence on the transit state. Therefore, the standard approach used to tackle the cost of being landlocked has been predominantly aimed at developing regional transport infrastructure and ensuring freedom of transit through regional conventions. But without sufficient attention given to the performance of logistics service delivery to traders, the standard approach is unable to address key bottleneck concerns and the factors that contribute to the cost of being landlocked. Consequently, the impact of massive investment on trade corridors could not materialize to its full extent. Based on extensive data collection in several regions of the world, this book argues that although landlocked developing countries do face high logistics costs, these costs are not a result of poor road infrastructure, since transport prices largely depend on trucking market structure and implementation of transit processes. This book suggests that high logistics costs in LLDCs are a result of low logistics reliability and predictability, which stem from rent-seeking and governance issues. 'The Cost of Being Landlocked' will serve as a useful guide for policy makers, supervisory authorities, and development agencies.

The Cost of Being Landlocked: Logistics Costs and Supply Chain Reliability (Directions in Development - Trade)

Arvis, Jean-François

Marteau, Jean-François

Sub-Saharan Africa has a serious infrastructure deficit―estimated at about $48 billion a year―which is impeding the continent’s competitiveness and hence its economic growth. How to solve this problem? Some advocate building more infrastructure while others suggest privatizing, or contracting out to the private sector, the management of infrastructure so that the discipline of the market will lead to more and better quality services. This book graphically illustrates the problem in the case of Africa’s ports. With the exception of Durban, cargo dwell times―the amount of time cargo spends in the port―average about 20 days in African ports, compared with 3–4 days in most other international ports. None of the past attempts to solve this problem have worked. The reason―and this is the major contribution of this volume―is that long dwell times are in the interest of certain public and private actors in the system. Importers use the ports to store their goods. Customs brokers have little incentive to move the goods because they can pass on the costs of delay to the importers. And when the domestic market is a monopoly, the downstream producer has an incentive to keep the cargo dwell times long as a way of deterring entry of other producers. The net result is inordinately long dwell times, ineffective interventions, and globally uncompetitive industries in African countries. The solution to decrease dwell time in these ports relies mainly on the challenging task of breaking the private sector’s collusion and equilibrium between public authorities, logistics operators, and some shippers and not on investing massively in infrastructure. Addressing the challenge will also require that there be political support from the general public for reforms that will promote their interests. And before they offer their political support, the public needs to be informed. This book is a step in that direction.

Why Does Cargo Spend Weeks in Sub-Saharan African Ports?: Lessons from Six Countries (Directions in Development - Trade)

Refas, Salim

Beuran, Monica

Isik, Gozde

Rule of Law is a theoretical concept social scientists use to describe a political order where laws are predictable and applied equally to all citizens, regardless of their political or economic influence. However, the drafting and implementation of laws and regulations compatible with principles of the Rule of Law depend on the incentives that lawmakers, implementing agencies, and ruling elites have. Realigning the incentive structures among key actors and organizations is therefore necessary to improve the chances for Rule-of-Law institutions to take root. Building the capacity of organizations without first changing institutional incentives is likely to lead to perverse outcomes, with the capacity ultimately channeled toward goals the reformers never envisioned.This book tells the story of how Rule of Law is applied in some countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Rules on Paper, Rules in Practice: Reducing Discretion and Enforcing Laws in the Middle East and North Africa (Directions in Development)

Ababsa, Myriam

Corduneanu-Huci, Cristina

Sergenti, Ernest

Aldahdah, Edouard

World Bank

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