The Center for Strategic and International Studies published on 10 October 2024 a commentary titled "Two Railroads, One Vision" by Judd Devermont.
The US has mobilized over $4 billion to develop the Lobito Economic Corridor, including refurbishing Angola's Benguela rail line and supporting a rail line expansion between the southern DRC and Zambia. This project will improve the movement of minerals and goods to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast. China is making available $1 billion to revitalize the Tanzania-Zambia Railway built in the 1970s that terminates in Dar es Salaam in the Indian Ocean.
While these projects are being framed in the context of great power competition, they offer the possibility of serving as an example of great power cooperation and one that accomplishes a Pan-African goal for a transcontinental rail link from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic that will expand economic development throughout the region. This could be done by connecting the two projects if all parties were to agree.
