The Maputo Corridor comprises the port, road, rail, pipeline, border post, and logistics services connecting northern Swaziland and the industrial core region of South Africa and the Port of Maputo in Mozambique. It links several intermediate centers in northeast South Africa (Witbank, Middleburg, Nelspruit, and Komatipoort) and the main sugar cane–growing region regions of Swaziland to Maputo.
The corridor has gone through several phases of development. It is now one of the most successful corridors in Africa, in terms of both the quality of its infrastructure and service and its development impact. At its peak, in the mid-1970s, the Maputo Corridor handled more than 14 million tonnes of cargo a year, most of it from South Africa. Following a protracted civil war in Mozambique, traffic volumes fell to 1 million tonnes by 1992, when all South African traffic had to be diverted to domestic ports.
Since the mid-1990s, the governments of South Africa and Mozambique have worked closely to reopen the corridor to South African and Swazi shippers. The two countries have promoted the reha- bilitation of core infrastructure (road, rail, border post, port and dredg- ing of the port, power, and information and communications technology [ICT]) using private sector financing and joint concessioning, particu- larly of the road. The initiative has led to more than $5 billion worth of investments along the corridor in both countries.
In addition, the governments have promoted exploitation of eco- nomic opportunity along the corridor, making Maputo a development corridor in the proper sense. There has been a deliberate effort to con- nect communities along the path of the corridor, especially communi- ties that are economically disadvantaged. Estimates are that more than 15,000 direct jobs have been created in transport, logistics, agricul- ture, and mining ventures along the corridor. The infrastructure and service improvement has been accompanied from the beginning by related institutional mechanisms culminating in the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative in 2004. The initiative emphasizes maximizing the investment potential of the corridor and exploiting all opportunities that rehabilitation of infrastructure creates. It also serves as a private sector–led corridor management and facilitation organization.
Primer 23
Supply Chain Organization
At its core a corridor is about facilitating supply chains. A corridor connects locations using different modes of transport to link production and distribu- tion centers. PriceWater houseCoopers (2010) maintains that mapping a cor- ridor is in essence mapping a series of connected clusters of economic activity. Corridors can therefore be visualized as reflecting the decisions made by different parties on how to organize production, distribution, and supply to capture regional specialization. As such, a corridor is not just a physical concept; it also represents the strategic decisions and choices devel- oped and made by firms, municipalities, and governments to attract increased flows of commodities to particular regions generated by deepening eco- nomic integration (Van Pelt 2003). The success of a corridor is thus in part a function of the coalitions that parties are able to form to attract investments and improve performance. How the parties collaborate to manage a corridor is a key dimension of the definition of a corridor. Institutional and economic relationships are part and parcel of a corridor, especially in the presence of competing trade routes (box P.2).
Framework for Institutional Collaboration
The institutional component covers the arrangements for cooperation and collaboration by the parties involved in a corridor. Bender (2001) rightly points out that corridors provide a spatial context for analyzing and orga- nizing development support, which transcends institutions and interna- tional boundaries. There are several multidonor initiatives on corridor development, such as the TradeMark East Africa or the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) initiatives in Central and South Asia. Such initiatives cut across traditional political, social, and economic boundaries. The institutional arrangements of a corridor include mecha- nisms to support trade facilitation, strengthen corridor logistics capacity, and build capacity for managing projects. In some instances, this compo- nent may include efforts to promote private sector participation in the man- agement of roads.
Corridors are about cooperation between public agencies, between the public and private sectors, and between private sector enterprises. Multisectoral representation and participation of the private sector are sine qua non conditions for successful trade and transport corridors. A corridor is therefore a spatial structure for overcoming the fragmentation of legal, institutional, physical, and practical boundaries. There are many different types of institutional and administrative arrangements for corridors;
24 Trade and Transport Corridor Management Toolkit some are voluntary, others are legally binding commitments between authorities of the countries crossed by the corridor.
The ideal arrangement is one in which each of the parties involved has the same level of willingness, commitment, power, and influence over developments and interventions. The concept of heterarchy is probably closest to the essence of corridor management. Heterarchy is “self-organized steering of multiple agencies, institutions, and sys- tems that are operationally autonomous from one another yet structur- ally coupled as a result of their mutual interdependence” (de Vries and Priemus 2003, p. 226). Command and control type approaches, though common, are less effective, because corridor components are spatially and institutionally distributed and complex. The ability to build
BOX P.2