The cautionary tales of Kenya’s SGR and Ethiopia’s dry port.
Build It, Then What? There’s a quiet trap in African infrastructure dreams: the assumption that concrete and steel guarantee progress.…
The Invisible Infrastructure: Customs, Bureaucracy, and Digital Disconnect at Dar Port.
When Renovation Isn’t Reform In the shadow of new gantry cranes and deeper berths at the Dar es Salaam Port,…
Kwala Dry Port: Tanzania’s Inland Bet on Decongesting Dar”
The Birth of a New Hub Just 65 kilometers inland from the bustling Dar es Salaam Port, a vast stretch…
Corridors of Competition: Can Dar es Salaam Outpace Mombasa in East Africa’s Port Race?”
Two Ports, One Region, Many Stakes East Africa’s economic integration is increasingly playing out along its transport corridors. At the…
Kwala Dry Port and the Last-Mile Problem: Solving Dar’s Hinterland Bottleneck
Inland ports are supposed to work like lungs for overstretched seaports, taking in cargo, easing congestion, and allowing the main…
Public or Private? Who Should Run Tanzania’s SGR?
The Train Is Running. But Who’s at the Helm? For years, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was a vision, tracks…
Who Will Fill These Wagons? Tanzania’s Cargo Dilemma Amid Real Freight Launch
Empty Tracks, Big Promises At last, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has begun hauling cargo. In late June 2025, a…
Rails and Rhetoric: Who Really Pays for Tanzania’s Mega Projects?
Every time the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) slices across Tanzania’s plains, it draws admiration, sleek, modern, and promising. It symbolizes…
Empty Trains, Missed Gains: A Modern Railway Without Modern Cargo
We built the train. It runs sleek, fast, and on schedule. From Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, then to Makutupora,…
Will It Move the People? Tanzania’s SGR and the Politics of Passenger Rail
I remember the first videos that surfaced: families gathered near the tracks, children pointing at the speeding locomotive, parents cheering…
