Landlocked Countries in Africa and the Challenges They Face

1

5

Landlocked Countries in Africa and the Challenges They Face
Name
Course
Institution
Date of Submission

Introduction
Approximately one out of five countries in the world is landlocked. By definition, landlocked countries are those that do not have direct access to the seacoast. footnoteRef:2 Such countries are amid the most impoverished and underachieving countries in the world, especially regarding economic developments. This is due to transportation barriers as these countries are dependent on countries that are not landlocked and through which their transportation routes must pass to reach ports1.That gives the transit countries political leverage over landlocked states. These peculiarities highlight the fact that Africa’s borders were drawn without regard for cultural or local indigenous political boundaries. 2: Adams, Samuel. “Foreign direct investment, domestic investment, and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Policy Modeling 31, no. 6 (2009): 939-949.

Landlocked Countries in Africa and the Challenges They Face
In Africa, there are 15 landlocked countries out of 55 countriesfootnoteRef:3. Most of these nations lie in sub-Saharan Africa, an area which is located south of the Sahara desert in Africa. These countries include Uganda, Ethiopia, Mali, Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, Niger, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia, Lesotho, Rwanda, Malawi, Botswana, and Burkina Faso2.The landlocked countries depend on other neighboring nations for the transit of goods to and from the sea. Most of these seaportsare well linked to the landlocked countries with the railway line, road networks and airlines for easy transport to these countriesfootnoteRef:4. For instance, most of the landlocked countries in the southern region of Africa are served by the Port of Walvis Bay which is one of the most active and best-equipped ports in Africa3.The landlocked countries served by this bay include Botswana, Central African Republic, Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Uganda uses the port of Mombasa to transport its goods through Kenya by use of railway line and the well-networked link of roads in Kenya. Burundi and Rwanda also use the port of Mombasa in Kenya to export its goods since the internal infrastructure in Tanzania is poor3. However, sometimes the country uses the Dar es Salaam port which is also the main transit port for Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and the Central African Republic. Tanzania has a railway connection from Dar es Salaam port through the country connecting to Kenyan rail line. Ethiopia also uses transportation routes through Kenya to Mombasa port. Other ports used by the landlocked countries are in Djibouti, Somalia, and Eritrea. 3: ?ervenka, Zdenek. Land-locked countries of Africa.Vol. 9. Nordic Africa Institute, 1973.
4: Glassner, Martin. Access to the sea for developing land-locked States.Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.

Due to the dependency condition of these landlocked countries upon countries through which their transportation routes must pass to reach ports, the transit nations have gained more political power over these landlocked nationsfootnoteRef:5.The landlocked countries highly depend on the political relations with the transit republics. This implies that if there is any conflict between the landlocked nation and its transit country, be it diplomatic or military; then the transit can easily block the transit borders or assume governing impairments to trade. Also, even when there is no conflict between the two countries, landlocked may suffer from the political whims of their transit countries. Even though there is a legal law in practice that protects the civil liberties of transit as per Article 125(1) of the United Nations Agreement on sea law, the right of sea coast access should be agreed upon with the transit country and this is determined by the relationship between the two. This is why the transit nations are stronger and more developed than the landlocked nations and explain why the economic power for South Africa and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe have over regional countries. 5: 3Glassner, Martin. Access to the sea for developing land-locked States. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012
4Hoekman, Bernard, and Alessandro Nicita.”Trade policy, trade costs, and developing country trade.” World Development 39, no. 12 (2011): 2069-2079.

Bibliography
Adams, Samuel. “Foreign direct investment, domestic investment, and economic growth inSub Saharan Africa.” Journal of Policy Modeling 31, no. 6 (2009): 939-949.
?ervenka, Zdenek. Land-locked countries of Africa.Vol. 9. Nordic Africa Institute, 1973.
Glassner, Martin. Access to the sea for developing land-locked States.Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
Hoekman, Bernard, and Alessandro Nicita.”Trade policy, trade costs, and developing country trade.” World Development 39, no. 12 (2011): 2069-2079.