Corridor mapping tools in Africa shift from assets to economic impact

An opinion piece by trade policy specialist Danilo Desiderio reviews a set of online tools that map African development corridors and argues that research is moving from locating infrastructure to assessing what it delivers economically.

The African Development Corridors Database, published in 2022 and hosted by UNEP-WCMC, covers 79 corridors and 184 projects, including railways, ports, pipelines, airports and industrial parks, and can be viewed against biodiversity, protected areas, land use and communities. GlobalCORRIDOR studies urban, investment and distributional effects. The AfRI Practice Hub, run by ECDPM with the University of Cape Town, links trade agreements, corridors and value chains. OpenRailwayMap shows rail lines and gauges worldwide but not operating status or capacity. The Northern and Central Corridor transport observatories monitor routes and goods movement in East Africa.

Why it matters: Corridor datasets let planners and researchers compare infrastructure footprints and environmental trade-offs, but the piece notes that maps alone do not show operational performance. Combining spatial data with trade and condition data is the gap for African corridor analysis.