ITT is working on a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-funded project in association with Koei Africa on a Logistics Survey study covering several countries in East Africa. The Government of Japan has been supporting the development of the Northern Logistics Corridor through primarily two programs, the Nairobi Urban Transport Development Program and the Mombasa Regional Development Program. These programs have several master plans or projects, some of which have been successfully implemented, while others are due for completion. The collective effort of all these projects is expected to contribute to the overall development in both Nairobi and Mombasa.

JICA is one of the world’s leading donor funded agencies, especially for infrastructure projects in developing countries. JICA has commenced implementation of a Logistics Survey for the Northern and Central Corridors, under the Data Collection Survey for Impact of Nairobi Urban Road Program and Baseline Survey for Regional Infrastructure Development Program including Mombasa, Project. This project aims at supporting trade facilitation in East Africa through reducing trade barriers and improving business competitiveness in the region. It is in this view that JICA is financing the Logistics Survey to acquire requisite data and information for Northern and Central Corridors and Borders reflecting the performance of these two corridors and related borders.

The overall objective of this Logistics Survey is to collect, analyse and document information on the performance of Northern and Central corridors and related borders with focus on time, traffic, cost and infrastructure. This baseline data will be used to evaluate the social and economic condition of related projects and their impacts in future. Such information will be used to formulate measures that will be put in place to reduce trade and logistics costs and in turn, improve the competitiveness of East Africa value chains on the regional and international markets.

Apart from informing the programming needs for JICA, obtained information will be instrumental in ascertaining the current functionality of the corridors, key obstacles and required improvements in operations as well as in the hard and soft infrastructure. ITT has been tasked to investigate the logistics component of the study which entails, Logistics infrastructure survey, Service quality questionnaire survey and Shippers and consignee questionnaire survey. The stakeholders in the countries of interest will contribute immensely to providing information that will showcase the existing quality of infrastructure and services, and contribute towards building up solutions which will improve the existing situation for the two major transport and transit corridors within the East Africa region.