Why Does Cargo Spend Weeks in Sub-Saharan African Ports?: Lessons from Six Case Studies (Directions in Development: Trade) - Softcover

Sub-Saharan Africa has a serious infrastructure deficit-estimated at about $48 billion a year-which is impeding the continent's competitiveness and hence its economic growth. How to solve this problem? Some advocate building more infrastructure while others suggest privatizing, or contracting out to the private sector, the management of infrastructure so that the discipline of the market will lead to more and better quality services.This book graphically illustrates the problem in the case of Africa's ports. With the exception of Durban, cargo dwell times-the amount of time cargo spends in the port-average about 20 days in African ports, compared with 3-4 days in most other international ports.