Funding approved for Zambia’s inclusion in Lobito Corridor
The African Development Bank Group board approved a $255-million loan from the African Development Fund and a $10-million grant from the Rome Process/Mattei Plan Financing Facility in August to support Zambia’s participation in the Lobito Corridor rail development initiative. The corridor is intended to create a direct freight route from the mineral-rich Copperbelt region in Central Africa to the Atlantic Ocean seaboard at Angola’s Port of Lobito. The first phase provides for about 550 km of railway infrastructure in Zambia and the upgrading of 105 km of the Mwinilunga-Jimbe road in North-Western province, with the approval representing the first tranche under the sixteenth replenishment of the ADF.
Why it matters: The approval sits within the briefing’s development finance theme, as a multilateral lender funds transport infrastructure meant to redirect Central African mineral exports to the Atlantic.