5 days ago
Tanzania commits to allow sea access to landlocked neighbours
Tanzania this week assured landlocked neighbours of unfettered sea access for their commerce, adding its voice to calls for sea routes, a point that has sometimes been contentious in the region.
Prof Godius Kyaharara, Permanent Secretary in Tanzania's Transport ministry, told a United Nations conference on August 6 that Dodoma was making good progress in removing barriers on landlocked East African Community (EAC) member states to access the Indian Ocean in the spirit of regional integration.
He said Tanzania has already taken measures such as improving operational efficiency at the port of Dar es Salaam, its main Indian Ocean gateway, was linking its ongoing standard gauge railway (SGR) project with landlocked EAC neighbours, and embraced the bloc's one-stop border post (OSBP) policy to facilitate faster cargo trade movements across the region.
In international law, coastal states are supposed to facilitate access to the sea for landlocked countries for commerce. However, non-tariff barriers and personal misunderstanding between leaders often affect the smooth flow of this access.
Prof Kyaharara's remarks at the third UN conference on Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDC3) in Awaza, Turkmenistan, came on the back of a renewed push by the leaders of Uganda and Ethiopia to address the difficulties they face in gaining direct sea access to boost the economies of their countries.
Speaking in Nairobi on July 30, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni described Africa as an 'economically fragmented' continent, where landlocked countries lacking direct access to the sea for trade purposes rarely treat it as a priority problem.'People in countries such as Uganda appear to be more concerned with minor things like who is president or who will be president, (but) whoever is president will face the same problem (of sea access),' Museveni told a media briefing after a State House meeting with his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto.'These are the issues that Mr Ruto and I have been discussing. What sort of arrangement is this where you have the sitting room in one country, the bedroom in another country and the kitchen in yet another country?'
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has also recently reiterated his government's commitment to finding ways to gain direct access to the Red Sea in a peaceful manner, saying the country's 120 million people have been grappling with growing economic challenges for at least three decades due to the absence of a seaport.'Glaring injustices have been committed against Ethiopia in violation of international frameworks on world landlocked countries, and it is an issue that requires a swift solution,' Dr Abiy said in Addis Ababa on June 9.
He said Ethiopia's quest for sea access was 'fair and legitimate' and would continue to be pursued 'peacefully, legally and through dialogue until the goal is met.'Ethiopia has a long history of conflict with both Eritrea and Djibouti regarding access to the Red Sea, the major gateway to trade markets in the Middle East and Europe, as well as Somalia which is its closest route to the Indian Ocean.
On Wednesday, Prof Kyaharara reaffirmed Tanzania's support for the implementation of the 10-year Awaza Programme of Action which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2024 for the benefit of 32 LLDCs located in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.
He called on other countries with sea access which are aligned to the program to honour their commitments to it by investing in more related projects to improve infrastructure, build capacity, and address non-tariff barriers.
The Awaza PoA is a follow-up to the 2014–2024 Vienna Programme of Action to support LLDCs in such areas as trade facilitation, structural transformation, transport connectivity, technology, climate resilience, and mobilising international support.
The aim is to align national-level actions, regional integration efforts and global policy frameworks to place LLDCs on a more dynamic path to sustainable development while safeguarding them against future shocks and disasters.
Prof Kyaharara said many of Tanzania's projects under the Awaza program banner were being implemented through bilateral cooperation agreements with landlocked neighbours such as Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to ensure shared benefits in the name of regional integration.
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