Most of East Africa's infrastructure development focuses on the region surrounding Lake Victoria and extends into the Great Lakes region. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are all located in the fertile and mineral-rich area that wraps around the lakes. The main purpose for establishing reliable transport infrastructure in the region is to strengthen the connection between the inland states, located west of Lake Victoria, to ports on the East African coast. Two routes have emerged to achieve this goal: the Central Corridor, which runs south of the lake through Tanzania, and the Northern Corridor, which runs north of the lake through Kenya. While these routes do not necessarily compete for internal traffic, they do compete for external investment. There is also a Southern Corridor that runs south from Tanzania, but this corridor caters more to what comes in and out of Central Africa's mining regions.
These arteries of surface transport, which connect to smaller, local nodes, are essential to the development of the regional economy and are driven by national interests. The region's economic activity, and the population supporting it, is concentrated along Lake Victoria and farther inland in the Great Lakes basin. These local economies are driven mostly by primary industries — the extraction and production of raw materials, agriculture, mining and potentially oil and natural gas. However, the East African region, particularly Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, shows potential for developing a low-end manufacturing base.
The transport routes are focused mostly on regional trade and international exports. These exports mostly consist of coffee, tea and mining products. The corridors are not just essential for moving these goods into international markets; they are also critical for the provisioning of agricultural and mining projects and emerging sectors. However, the existing surface transport network — consisting of roads and railways — faces constraints in capacity and efficiency that limit the region's ability to attract investment in complementary industrial and utility sectors. If the countries in East Africa are to expand their commercial operations and attract new activity, particularly manufacturing, more reliable transportation networks will be needed.
