To increase trade within Africa, Egypt is leading an ambitious project to create a 4,000-km waterway from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean sea that would connect 10 African countries by 2024.

According to a report by Africa Business Communities, Egypt’s Minister of Water and Irrigation, Mohamed Adly announced they completed their annual progress report highlighting the results of the early stages of the project’s feasibility studies.

The proposed plan is estimated to cost $12 billion and would connect 10 countries including; Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.

Originally the Egyptian government and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEDPAD), the technical body of the African Union, proposed the project in 2013. The plan also mentions that the waterway will be integrated with intermodal transport running along sections of the Trans-Africa Highway (Cape Town – Cairo, Lagos-Mombasa, Dakar-Ndjameno-Djbouti and Cairo-Dakar), as well as big harbours in Alexandria, Suez Canal, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, and will connect a few railway lines.

The first phase of the project proposes connecting Lake Albert in Uganda and Khartoum in Sudan, Gambela in Ethiopia to the White Nile in South Sudan, and Khartoum Sudan to Aswan in Egypt. While the second phase will connect Uganda’s Lake Victoria and Lake Albert as well as the Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia to the main Nile in Sudan.

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