Real Health Gains For Africa Through North South Corridor, Says Minister

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 08 Apr 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The North South Corridor could deliver significant gains in reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV and AIDS in Southern and Eastern Africa, Trade and Development Minister Gareth Thomas told a conference today in Lusaka. The UK Government, through its Department for International Development, yesterday announced its commitment of £100m funding for the North South Corridor; an unprecedented initiative which will remove the bottlenecks that currently exist along the main trading routes throughout the region by speeding up border crossings, improving railways, roads and ports.

Although the benefits to trade in the region are manifest and numerous, the North South Corridor is set to make a real difference to healthcare in Africa too. Better roads and railways and faster transit routes should facilitate improved access to healthcare across the eight African countries involved in the project; Tanzania, DRC, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.

Health issues are a major concern in Southern Africa. In Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe around 1,000 women die for every 100,000 babies born (in the UK the ratio is eight deaths per 100,000 births). One of the factors which are crucial in helping to prevent these deaths is better transport to make sure that women in labour can get to a health clinic in time to give birth safely.

Currently far too many women are dying simply because they cannot get to the basic health facilities that can save their lives, and the lives of their babies.

Minister for Trade and Development, Gareth Thomas, today said:

"The North South Corridor has a key role to play in improving healthcare in Africa. By upgrading transport in the region, thousands of lives will be saved as mothers are able to reach health clinics in time, and drugs, medical equipment and condoms will become more widely available.

"I am pleased that the British Government can support this project, which will make a real difference to people's everyday life in Africa in so many ways."

By getting transport moving in the region, through investment in roads (8,000 km of road will be upgraded under the scheme; the equivalent to the distance between Beijing and Paris), rail, and ports the North South Corridor will enable women and men in Southern and Eastern Africa to travel more easily than ever before to get healthcare when they need it.

Better infrastructure should also result in faster, wider and safer distribution of drugs, medical equipment and condoms, as well as increasing access to healthcare services for people living in rural communities along the corridor. And steps are being taken to tackle the health risks caused by greater mobility in the region.

One of the key problems that the North South Corridor aims to address is the long waiting times that people face when crossing a border.

Sex workers often congregate at border posts where they and truck drivers are vulnerable to contracting HIV. The scope for high-risk behaviour increases the longer truck drivers are delayed waiting for paperwork to clear. Truck drivers are known to be heavily affected by HIV. One survey in a South African province found 56 per cent of male truck drivers had HIV.

Drivers often wait up to 10 days to cross the Chirundu border post, between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This post is set to become one of the pioneering new One Stop Border Posts, where the border process will be streamlined so that those passing through will only have to submit their documents once - waiting times for drivers could be halved.

The North South Corridor programme is led by three Regional Economic Communities - the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

The estimated total cost of upgrading and maintaining roads along the NS Corridor is US$7.4 billion over a 20 year period. Improvements on rail, port and trade facilitation measures will cost an estimated further US$ 1.3 billion over 5 years.

DFID is committing £100m under its new "TradeMark" programme to support the North South Corridor and broader Aid for Trade initiatives.

"TradeMark" builds on DFID's very successful Regional Trade Facilitation Programme (RTFP) that was instrumental in supporting COMESA, EAC and SADC to formulate the North Couth Corridor programme as a Tripartite initiative.

In addition to TradeMark, DFID intends to provide at least £10m to co-finance the World Bank's new Trade Facilitation Facility (TFF) which is being launched by the World Bank at the North South Corridor Conference.

The new Trade Facilitation Facility will expand the World Bank's capacity to assist developing countries remove the bottlenecks that stop goods moving across borders and prevent trade.

Trade facilitation is an important pillar of the global Aid for Trade Initiative and is a central part of DFID's Aid for Trade Strategy. TradeMark and the TFF are two new programmes form part of DFID's Aid for Trade commitments under that strategy.

Source
Department for International Development (UK)