East Africa Marine Transport (EAMT)

The EAMT project is anticipated to carry 123,000 tons of cargo across Lake Victoria in its first year of operation, increasing to 337,000 tons annually by year 5. The anticipated journey time across the Lake is 18-20 hours, a reduction from 3 days round trip on road. The project thus contributes directly to SDG 9 through developing quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including regional and transborder infrastructure, to support economic development and human well-being.​

The Project was developed with private investment from PIDG and Grindrod. During the preparation phase a number of market assessments were performed to gauge demand for the service.​

Support sound public financial management, debt transparency, and project-level and country-level debt sustainability.​

The project is expected to provide an emission reduction through modal shift of freight off the roads to the vessel. A total of 4,914,000 km are estimated to be saved each year resulting in avoided emissions of 2,334 tCO2e.​

The effective operation of the vessel on Lake Victoria is highly dependent on lake water levels. At high extremes, elevated water levels may inundate the quay and associated infrastructure. At the other end, significantly low water levels increase the risk of vessel grounding. The project therefore underwent a Physical Climate Risk Assessment (PCRAM) that assessed risk and resilience options over the full life of the asset covering short, medium and long-term impacts. The PCRAM assessment set an adaptive pathway for the asset, monitoring climate data to understand the need to reassess and / or invest in resilience options as and when certain climate variables trigger certain thresholds, which will be monitored throughout the assets life i.e. lake levels. Considering all climate models - General Circulation Models (GCMs) - and emissions scenarios, 49 distinct futures were assessed. PIDG then used PCRAM's value enhancement assessment to map direct and indirect benefits from resilience investment.​

Ensure value-for-money over an asset’s full life-cycle cost.​