Meeting basic needs in the most isolated corner of Africa

A whole day travelling: that’s the time in which a plane takes its passengers from one side of the world to the other, or how long it takes a family going on holiday in their car to cross a mid-sized country or a large American state. Even a cyclist can easily cover more than 100km (60 miles) in a day.

A truck carefully moves off a rudimentary ferry on the road
north of Bria, north-east CAR.

But in the remote north-east of the Central African Republic, the few Sudanese truckers who try to get their much-needed supplies through to these isolated towns and villages are lucky if they manage to cover 60km (36 miles) in that same day. And that’s during the dry season, when the sand has not turned to sludge and the countless streams are dry and easily forded. When it’s wet, the trucks simply disappear into the morass and wait, totally immobilised for months. There are no bridges – in fact, there is nothing that anyone could really describe as a road, whatever the optimistic twenty-year-old map might indicate. Just a narrow dirt or sand track fast disappearing in the undergrowth, winding its way northwards through the scrub forests for hundreds of kilometres.

The road south of Ouadda.

There are no other routes. This region is as far from the sea as it is possible to get in Africa – 1,600km (1,000 miles) as the crow flies – and in the dry savannah the rivers are far too small for cargo boats. The government has neither the means nor the capacity to govern here; they can provide no security, support or supplies, and have hardly done so for decades. The people who eke out an existence here have no other choice but to be totally self-sufficient, their only connection with the outside world those trucks that manage to get through a few times a year. The truckers, in addition to having to dig themselves out of the sand a few times a day, take the risk of being attacked and robbed by armed bandits who take advantage of the area’s remoteness. Last week, they struck six times within as many days along the only practicable road that leads from Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital, to the north-eastern Vakaga region. With difficulties this big and the tiny profits available from the impoverished population, many truckers are giving up and no longer return.

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Prime Minister makes emergency appeal

Bangui, Central African Republic – Faustin Touadera, Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, issued an emergency appeal for international support in the wake of a catastrophic failure of the country’s power system. After nearly 60 years of service and erratic maintenance at best, and despite offers from key donors to help over the course of the past few months, CAR’s weak electric infrastructure has taken one more step towards complete collapse.  Rolling blackouts, often lasting more than 24 hours, have now plunged the capital into nearly complete darkness. Continue Reading »

The World Bank, in partnership with the European Union, the African Development Bank and the French Development Agency, will invest $680 million in three countries – Chad, Cameroon and Central African Republic, to improve the regional transport infrastructure.

The 2,000 kilometer stretch that connects the Douala Port in western Cameroon to the country’s landlocked neighbors Central African Republic and Chad is known as one of Africa’s worst. The connection is one of the last major trade routes without all-weather, paved roads going from one part of Africa to another.

Shippers struggle to get their goods to and from international markets. Trade is hampered for thousands and the deplorable infrastructure is a substantial toll on the price of doing business regionally. Transport costs are the highest in the world. Read more about this vital project on the World Bank’s website.