To encourage investment and production in agriculture, manufacturing, and mining, governments and businesses in southern Africa needed a framework of sound economic policy and infrastructure systems.
Many policy and infrastructure issues needed to be resolved through private and public efforts. A critical issue was the high cost of surface transportation in southern Africa. Nathan Associates provided policy analysis assistance to the Southern Africa Transport and Communications Commission (SATCC). Established in 1981, SATCC is the first commission of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
Clients
USAID, SATCC
Purpose
Encourage market-oriented policies and regulations to lower road and rail transport costs in creating an integrated regional transport network.
Actions
- Drafted the SADC Transport, Communications, and Meteorology Protocol, a framework for harmonizing the regions road, rail, maritime, civil aviation, telecommunications, postal service, and meteorology sectors.
- Devised reform proposals covering structures and levels of road user charges, roles of road boards and road funds, and operation of road management and maintenance programs.
- Hosted a railway restructuring workshop on private participation in the rail subsector, including concessioning of rail properties and operations.
- Developed proposals for making border crossing operations efficient.
- Studied privatizing road contracting and deregulating regional trucking.
- Assisted Corridor Planning Committees, the Southern African Railways Association, and a maritime forum of ports.
- Prepared model legislation for commercial port restructuring and regulation and drafted model contracts for port build-operate-transfer arrangements.
- Worked closely with SATCC senior management to build the institution’s capacities.
- Created a computer information system linking SATCC to public and private sources of transport sector data.
- Assisted SATCC with organization, work planning, and training.