The Lobito corridor: Opportunities to catalyse investments for food security, regional trade and climate resilience

Summary

This paper is a key output for the joint African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) project to assist African countries and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in integrating climate and food policies and translating them into investment pipelines, with a specific focus on infrastructure and trade corridors. It aims to link four major policy areas: food, climate, trade and infrastructure in the Lobito corridor, with the purpose of encouraging sustainable agrifood investments by adopting a corridors approach. It uses a political economy lens to identify entry points for investments which are both desirable and politically feasible. 

The Lobito Corridor holds strategic relevance from two key perspectives:

• Corridor country perspective: for Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia, the corridor has long been a priority for enhancing connectivity and fostering broader socioeconomic development. As these countries seek to explore opportunities beyond mere exports of raw materials, they also seek investments as well as partners to achieve these objectives, including in agriculture development and enhanced food security.
• International partners and EU perspective: this corridor has political commitments from several international partners, in particular the EU under its Global Gateway, as well as individual member states such as Italy under its Mattei Plan. Beyond being a means of establishing geopolitical relevance of the EU vis-à-vis China, the European support to this corridor also provides opportunities for successfully engaging the European private sector to ensure mutually beneficial partnerships with the corridor countries.
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Section 1 maps key contextual factors, relevant policies, investment plans and actors/partners along the Lobito Corridor. Building on this, and based on informal consultations and interviews both online and during missions in the three Corridor countries​​​​​​​.

Section 2 outlines emerging opportunities to simultaneously enhance food security, climate resilience and regional trade along the Lobito Corridor.

Section 3 articulates these opportunities as a triangle of regional investment cases: putting forward a politically savvy vision of why finance should flow into the selected value chains or sub-sectors; and a cluster of concrete investment options for relevant stakeholders.

​​​​​​​Section 4 concludes presenting three pillars of action to promote such investments and related regional cooperation: policy reforms, finance mechanisms and multi-stakeholder platforms.