THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF RAILWAYS UNION INTERNATIONALE DES CHEMINS DE FER THE RAILWAYS OF AFRICA “VISIONS 2025” Background paper, UIC strategy Preliminary version 12. July 2007 PRELIMINARY 12-07-2007 1 Introduction The paper is a start-up document concerning UIC’s future strategies for the African railways. This paper is prepared for the International Union of Railways by a working group reporting to Sectrétaire Général Mr. André Michel, UIC. The project manager is Mr. Stig Nerdal. The project team consists of staff from Transportutvikling AS; Mr. Kjell Heggelund, Mr. Jan Terje Henriksen and Mr. Jean Manirakiza and Mr. Adame Diagne from UIC. During the working period, the project team has been assisted by the following experts from the African railways: • Mr. Devan Naidoo, Executive Manager, Spoornet, South Africa • Mr. Adam Tamou Tabe, CEDEAO, Nigeria • Mr. Ahamado Ouedraogu, Technical Director, Sopafer-B, Burkina Faso • Mr. Said Chandid, ONCFM, Morocco • Mr. Linford Mboma (or Kesy), TRC, Tanzania • Others to be included X expert group meeting have been held as well as several meeting with African railways and organizations. A preliminary report/structure was presented for the UIC Regional Assembly for Africa in Rabat on April 17. 2007. The final report will be presented for the General Assembly of UIC Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 21-2007. Information obtained from the railways of Africa is of different quality and for some countries satisfactory figures is not possible to obtain. During the next phases of UIC’s strategic work for the African railways, the information should be assessed and refined through UIC’s organizational network according to future requirements The study has been made during January through August 2007. 2 PRELIMINARY 12-07-2007 2 Content 1 INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________ 2 2 CONTENT _________________________________________________________ 3 2.1 List of figures ____________________________________________________ 5 2.2 List of tables_____________________________________________________ 6 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY _______________________________________________ 7 4 RÉSUMÉ EXÉCUTIF __________________________________________________ 7 5 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES _______________________________________ 8 6 METHODS AND HYPOTHESIS __________________________________________ 9 7 THE WORLD AND THE AFRICAN MARKET ________________________________ 11 7.1 African continent and regions ______________________________________ 11 7.2 The market _____________________________________________________ 14 8 THE RAILWAYS OF AFRICA – SHORT DESCRIPTION _______________________ 18 8.1 Historical introduction ____________________________________________ 18 8.1.1 Glimpse of railway history in Africa. _________________________________________ 18 8.1.2 African Railways restructuring______________________________________________ 19 8.2 Railway map____________________________________________________ 20 8.3 Overview ______________________________________________________ 22 8.4 African railways and the world______________________________________ 22 8.5 Density of railway network ________________________________________ 25 8.6 Main projects & international corridors _______________________________ 27 8.7 Production _____________________________________________________ 31 8.7.1 Passenger transport______________________________________________________ 32 8.7.2 Freight transport ________________________________________________________ 33 8.8 UIC and Africa __________________________________________________ 36 8.8.1 The new dimension of UIC ________________________________________________ 36 8.8.2 UIC member status & strategy _____________________________________________ 36 9 CONDITIONS HAVING IMPACT ON RAILWAY TRANSPORT __________________ 40 9.1 Transportation issues _____________________________________________ 40 3 PRELIMINARY 12-07-2007 9.1.1 The African transportation sector ___________________________________________ 40 9.1.2 Alternative transport _____________________________________________________ 41 9.1.3 African ports ___________________________________________________________ 46 9.1.4 Railway technology ______________________________________________________ 47 9.1.5 Infrastructure and operational conditions_____________________________________ 51 9.1.6 Liberalization and concessioning ____________________________________________ 54 9.2 Demographical issues_____________________________________________ 57 9.2.1 Urbanization____________________________________________________________ 61 9.3 Environmental development________________________________________ 64 9.4 Energy ________________________________________________________ 69 9.4.1 Electricity ______________________________________________________________ 73 9.4.2 Energy per capita________________________________________________________ 73 9.5 Economy_______________________________________________________ 76 9.5.1 The Gross Domestic Product _______________________________________________ 78 9.5.1.1 Status and historical trends for Africa .................................................................. 80 9.5.1.2 Future growth.................................................................................................... 83 9.5.2 International trade_______________________________________________________ 84 9.5.3 The economic structure___________________________________________________ 87 9.5.4 Poverty and aid dependency _______________________________________________ 88 9.5.5 Foreign investments _____________________________________________________ 88 9.6 Other conditions & restrictions______________________________________ 89 9.6.1 International focus on Africa _______________________________________________ 89 9.6.2 Political conditions in countries and regions ___________________________________ 90 9.6.3 Security _______________________________________________________________ 91 9.6.4 Natural disasters and climate ______________________________________________ 94 10 THE FUTURE ______________________________________________________ 95 10.1 Transportation work______________________________________________ 95 10.2 Future infrastructure requirements __________________________________ 97 11 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ____________________________________ 101 12 PROGRESS (NOT COMPLETED)_______________________________________ 104 13 ENCLOSURES ____________________________________________________ 106 I. COUNTRIES DEFINED AS AFRICA_____________________________________ 106 4 PRELIMINARY 12-07-2007 2.1 List of figures Figure 6-1: Relation between transport and macro-conditions _____________________________________ 9 Figure 6-2: Projection for the future - difficulties _______________________________________________ 9 Figure 7-1: The size of Africa (Source: The Times Atlas) ________________________________________ 11 Figure 7-4: Trade region of the world, 2005 __________________________________________________ 15 Figure 7-5: African exports and imports 1995-2005 ____________________________________________ 15 Figure 7-6: Globalization, new and longer transportation routes __________________________________ 16 Figure 8-1: Map of colonial Africa as in 1913 (with present country borders) ________________________ 19 Figure 8-2 The South African railway Network ________________________________________________ 21 Figure 8-3: The railway Network in Northern Egypt ____________________________________________ 21 Figure 8-4: African railway network, per country ______________________________________________ 22 Figure 8-5: African Railway Gauge, 2007 ____________________________________________________ 24 Figure 8-6: African railway gauge, share 2007 ________________________________________________ 24 Figure 8-7: Density of railway network (km per 1 mill inhabitants) ________________________________ 25 Figure 8-8: Density of railway network (km per 1,000 km2 land area)______________________________ 27 Figure 8-9: The Maghreb railways__________________________________________________________ 27 Figure 8-10 Transport corridors Southern Africa (Source: Spoornet)_______________________________ 28 Figure 8-11: Potential UAC corridors in North, West and Central Africa ___________________________ 29 Figure 8-12: Potential trade flows __________________________________________________________ 29 Figure 8-13: Transit corridors and new inland soultions_________________________________________ 31 Figure 8-14 Stability and instability, passengers _______________________________________________ 32 Figure 8-15 Passenger kilometers and correlation _____________________________________________ 33 Figure 8-16 Stability and instability, freight __________________________________________________ 34 Figure 8-17 Ton -km and correlation ________________________________________________________ 35 Figure 8-18 UIC’s regional organization, 2007________________________________________________ 36 Figure 8-19: Not active UIC-members – population and railways infrastructure ______________________ 38 Figure 8-20: UIC map, Africa _____________________________________________________________ 39 Figure 9-1: Worldwide regional passenger growth _____________________________________________ 41 Figure 9-2: GDP growth and passenger cars _________________________________________________ 42 Figure 9-3: World growth projections, container traffic _________________________________________ 45 Figure 9-4 Top twenty African Container ports (ranked by 2004 figures) ____________________________