The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 approved an African Development Fund (ADF) Loan of US $123 million to Kenya for the Mombasa-Mariakani Highway upgrading project.

The project road is a key import/export gateway and an important section of the Northern Corridor (NC), which links the port of Mombasa in Kenya with the land-linked eastern and central African countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

With increasingly constrained capacity due to traffic volumes largely dominated by heavy trucks, the road experiences persistent congestion that hinders access to the main sea port of Mombasa.

The Project consists of the dualization of a 41.7-kilometre stretch of the Mombasa-Mariakani Highway with flyovers, bus bays, service roads, truck parking, pedestrian foot bridges, walkways, street lighting and associated soft components. The project will be co-financed by KfW of Germany, European Investment Bank and the Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund.

This intervention is in line with the Kenyan Government's national strategies and the Bank's Ten Year Strategy (2013-2022), which prioritizes support to infrastructure development and promotion of regional integration as key areas of assistance. In addition, the project is well aligned with the regional infrastructure strategic pillar of the East African Regional Integration Strategy Paper (RISP 2011-2015), which focuses on Regional Transportation/Trade Facilitation Infrastructure to promote seamless connectivity within the East African Community (EAC) region.

Efficient transportation and movement of people and goods resulting from the intervention will spur economic development in the area and beyond. It will also improve port efficiency, and reduce import/export costs, thus improving the region's global competitiveness. The project complements the Bank's past operations in Kenya, in particular, and the region at large.