Skip to main content

East Africa’s massive new ring road project

Plans are being drawn up for a major new highway project in East Africa. Preparations are being made by the authorities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The 450km ring road route runs around the shoreline of Lake Victoria and will provide better transport connections for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as for other near neighbours, particularly Rwanda and Burundi. New border posts will be required, to help increase the flow of traffic between the nations. Although it will be complex, the project will boos
June 30, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
RSSPlans are being drawn up for a major new highway project in East Africa. Preparations are being made by the authorities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The 450km ring road route runs around the shoreline of Lake Victoria and will provide better transport connections for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as for other near neighbours, particularly Rwanda and Burundi. New border posts will be required, to help increase the flow of traffic between the nations. Although it will be complex, the project will boost transport connectivity around the lake area and develop trade and commerce between the three nations, as well as Rwanda and Burundi. It is expected to cost in the region of US$410 million to construct, but the economic benefits of the road to these five nations will vastly outweigh the building costs.

Feasibility studies are now being carried out with a view to providing the basis for a more detailed route, as well as assessing any potential environmental issues. Once the feasibility studies are complete design work can commence. Much of the funding for the project is expected to be sourced from the World Bank.

Kenya’s portion of the route would most likely run from Bumula in Busia County to Muhuru Bay in Migori County, according to the local authorities in Kenya’s Homa-Bay. The routes for the sections running through Uganda and Tanzania have yet to be revealed.

Related Content

  • Denmark reconsiders a Kattegat link
    May 10, 2023
    A bridge would cross the Kattegat Strait between the Jutland peninsula city of Aarhus - Denmark’s second largest city after the capital Copenhagen - and Kalundborg, a small city of 17,000 on the western shore of Zealand Island.
  • Tanzanian road project benefits from funding sources
    August 28, 2019
    Financing has been secured that will help pay for the 110km ring road around Tanzania’s official capital, Dodoma.
  • Mexico opening highway tender process
    March 16, 2015
    Four highway concessions will be due for tender shortly. The country’s Secretariat for Communications and Transport (SCT) is working on these four motorway concessions and intends to open the tender process in the next few months. The highway projects being considered for tender include a new link Indios Verdes and Santa Clara, the Las Varas-Puerto Vallarta connection, the Tulum highway and Orizaba highway. SCT recently put the Hermosillo highway project out to tender recently and this is generating interes
  • Sao Paulo’s Mario Covas ring road faces last section glitch
    April 10, 2015
    A consortium of Brazil's Mendes Junior and Spain's Isolux Corsán could lose its US$208 million contract to build part of the northern section of the Mario Covas beltway around the Brazilian city of São Paulo. The consortium, led by Mendes Junior, is falling behind schedule because of cash flow problems, according to São Paulo state highway company Dersa. The deal was signed in January 2013, local paper Folha de São Paulo reported.