In Africa, cross-border road transport carries over 80% of intra-regional and inter-regional trade. It provides a critical link between landlocked countries and international markets, and plays an important role for regional connectivity. Improving regional connectivity is becoming increasingly important to promoting intra-regional trade and intra-Africa trade, and this requires an efficient transport system which enables faster travel, facilitates movement and achieves the goal of smooth movement of goods.

In most cases, road transport is the only mode of transport available connecting inland economic hubs in different countries, thus enabling landlocked countries to participate in the global economic system. Whilst some regional corridors are multimodal (such as the Central corridor), providing both road and rail, others provide both modes only for a section of the corridor (like the Trans-Kalahari corridor). Corridor institutional arrangements have a huge bearing on the performance of corridors, the efficiency of operations and speed at which corridor bottlenecks are addressed. It is therefore important to keep these in check to continuously improve the arrangements with a view to enhance their effectiveness and impact on trade facilitation. This is important towards enhancing the realisation of the objectives of key regional and continental initiatives such as the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

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