The Trans-African Highway network, also known as Trans-African Corridors, comprises transcontinental multi-billion road projects aimed at promoting trade and alleviating poverty in Africa.

The projects are being carried out by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (ADB), and the African Union in conjunction with regional international communities.

The network reaches all the continental African nations except Burundi, Eritrea, Eswatini, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni), Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

The developing agencies believe that through the networks, all the beneficiary countries will experience improved living condition due to reduced prices for goods occasioned by increased interstate and domestic trade and revival of small and medium-sized businesses.

Cairo-Dakar Highway

The Cairo-Dakar Trans African Highway has a total length of 8636km that runs through Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal.

It is substantially complete except for a few kilometres on the Western Sahara-Mauritania border where there is currently only a desert track.

Lagos-Mombasa Highway

The Lagos–Mombasa Highway has a length of 6,259km and crosses Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Kenya.

It is contiguous with the Dakar-Lagos Highway with which it will form (when complete) the longest east-west crossing of the continent for a total distance of 10,269km.

Tripoli-Windhoek-Cape Town Highway

The route passes through Libya, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of the Congo (ROC), the western tip of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

South Africa was not originally included in the route which was first planned in the Apartheid era.

It is meant to be the second link between North and Southern Africa, with the Cairo-Cape Town Highway being the other route, passing through East Africa.

Algiers-Lagos Highway

Conceived over 50 years ago, this route runs almost 5,000 kilometres from Algiers to Lagos in Nigeria.

When the giant project is complete, a 4,500km motorway will be delivered between Algiers and Lagos, of which 2,500km will be in Algeria.

Dakar-Ndjamena Highway

This corridor runs from Dakar to N’Djamena cutting between seven countries  including Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.

The route covers a distance of about 4,500km and connects the landlocked countries in the heart of West Africa to the ports along the coast, boosting economic integration in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Dakar-Lagos Highway

The Trans–West African Coastal Highway is a transnational highway project to link twelve West African coastal nations, from Mauritania in the north-west of the region to Nigeria in the east, with feeder roads already existing to two landlocked countries, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The eastern end of the highway terminates at Lagos, Nigeria. Some organizations such as the ECOWAS consider its western end to be Nouakchott, Mauritania, and others such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa consider it to be Dakar, Senegal, giving rise to these alternative names for the road: Nouakchott–Lagos Highway, Lagos–Nouakchott Highway, Dakar–Lagos Highway and Lagos–Dakar Highway.

Beira-Lobito Highway

The route has a length of 3,523km (2,189 miles) crossing Angola, the most southerly part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and central Mozambique.

It links mining areas of DR Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe and agricultural production areas of Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe to the Atlantic port of Lobito and Indian Ocean port of Beira.

Civil wars in Angola, DR Congo, Zimbabwe and Mozambique have affected development of the highway in the past, most recently in DR Congo and Angola.

Between Kapiri Mposhi and Kafue in Zambia, the highway shares the route with the Cairo-Cape Town Highway. When complete this highway will be the southernmost of the Trans-African network’s east-west crossings of the continent.

Source; Oxford Business Group/Africa Development Bank/NEPAD