Investigating Risks to the Implementation of the Great Equatorial Landbridge (GELB) Highway Project across Africa

Abstract

Transboundary Trade Corridors (TTC) are becoming increasingly important for achieving national, regional, and global development objectives. However, the cross-boundary nature of these projects involves dealing with diverse contexts that span across different countries and involve multiple stakeholders with varying interests. These circumstances exacerbate the risks and uncertainties that arise during their implementation, intensifying the challenges involved in making decisions about how to proceed with their execution. Insufficient evaluations of development projects have been identified as a contributing factor to unforeseen risks, which in turn can result in the underperformance and failure of transportation infrastructure projects. This ultimately acts as an impediment to achieving sustainable development goals. Further, rapid deployment of post risk-event corrective measures can exacerbate, for instance, macro-economic crisis and civil unrest. The Great Equatorial Land Bridge is a TTC planned to traverse five countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, South-Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Despite the anticipated advantages for globalization, political cooperation, and regional integration, the risks that must be addressed to successfully implement this project are still uncertain. We, therefore, use a Multicriteria Decision-Making (MCDM) framework to investigate risks to its successful implementation. The analysis results highlight that effectively managing economic, political, and geographic risks is crucial for the successful implementation of the project. Policy-makers, contractors and multiple stakeholders will benefit from this study’s depiction of the risks and their relative importance. Results can also inform actions toward sustainable development of the project.

1. Introduction

Investments in transport infrastructure have a cascading effect on other development processes and play a critical role in attaining multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [1,2,3]. Numerous studies have consistently shown that inadequate and inefficient transportation infrastructure is closely associated with limited economic development and hindered progress in socio-economic indicators [4,5]. Transboundary transport links, as a subset of transport infrastructure, are gaining more currency to reach national, regional, and global development targets. Indeed, spatial coverage and operational efficiency of transboundary transport links have been related to regional economic cooperation and political integration [6,7]. Two examples of such links, namely land bridges and Transboundary Trade Corridors (TTCs) are relevant to this study, which seeks to unearth potential inhibitors against the successful development of a highway project across Africa.

Landbridge is a transport link built across a continental mass that separates distinct maritime routes. Landbridges are built for three reasons: first, to circumvent maritime routes, thereby reducing transit time and cost; second, to provide continuity among dif-ferent maritime routes since they start and terminate at seaports [8,9]; third, to avoid sea routes with high incidences of extreme climatic and insecurity events. Landbridges come in two types, national and transnational. A national landbridge has its entire span within a single country’s boundary, such as the three proposed interventions in Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Israel [10,11]. On the other hand, a transnational land bridge is one that straddles different countries, such as the Great Equatorial Land Bridge (GELB Highway project), which is the focus of this study.

TTCs are multimodal-transport routes that traverse different countries to concurrently connect logistic hubs and pursue multiple developmental benefits [12,13]. By traversing different countries, land-bridges convey international traffic, promote foreign trade, and support regional cooperation and integration [14,15,16]. Given their spatial location, footprint, and intended purpose, the GELB Highway Project (GHP) can be considered both as a landbridge and a TTC.

Four reasons for the importance of TTC projects have been mentioned by multilateral development agencies, regional economic communities, individual governments, and researchers. These are: their interplay on 155 out of the total 169 targets of SDGs, promotion of development through trade-agreement enablement, providing linkage to landlocked developing countries, and their contribution to illuminating the often-ignored spatial aspect of regional development. For these reasons, their successful implementation matters and helps align land-transport interventions to four conjoined forces of globalization, economic integration, development inclusivity, and sustainability [6,17,18,19,20,21,22].

Despite their potency as enablers towards achieving previously mentioned benefits, TTC implementation is a complicated endeavor and a complex decision problem en-gulfed in risk and uncertainty. TTCs are prone to project risks owing to: heterogeneous characteristics of the cross-border territories they traverse, deployment in settings consisting of different administrative regimes, variation in national objectives of project nations, incidences of insecurity and political conflict, ever-oscillating geopolitical dynamics, the multiplicity of decision makers at different scales, and a wide array of stakeholder interests. This is further aggravated by the continuous change of the above-mentioned contextual variables within implementational settings [21,23,24,25,26].

Literature often emphasizes the importance of efficient project management and effective delivery when discussing successful projects. However, project risks are often identified as a factor that can hinder the successful implementation of TTCs. If project risks and uncertain events are not controlled, they can compromise TTC implementation in two ways. First, altering project flow that causes non-attainment of pre-determined benefits, schedule, and tech-nical specifications. Second is through causing qualitative and quantitative deviation from expected project outcomes, and could be in terms of reduced project impact, intervention’s contextual inappropriateness, disruption, and project failure among other un-intended consequences. Further, the rapid deployment of measures to correct risk-induced TTC disruption, underperformance, and failure could exacerbate, for instance, macro-economic crisis and civil unrest. If TTC planning and construction are flawed due to overlooking risks at project inception, the undesirable effects arising later will persist throughout TTC lifespan with minimum reversibility[27,28,29,30,31].

Despite the significance of TTC projects and the negative impacts that risks have on their implementation, little attention is given to managing inherent risks in mega transport projects such as TTCs [20,32,33,34]. In consideration of the profound influence that risks have on TTC projects, it is crucial to prioritize risk anticipation and management as fundamental components in pre-implementation decision-making. This approach serves to increase the likelihood of project success. However, anticipation and control of risks to GHP are not possible without knowing their identity and relative weight on the project if they occur. This is a gap that this study aims to address.

A Brief Overview of the Proposed GELB Highway Project

In 2018, African heads of state and governments agreed in an African Union meeting to create a continent-wide common market known as the African Continental Free Trade Area. The African Union explains that, if realized, the African Continental Free Trade Area will help reverse the continents’ weak developmental performance in two ways. First, by enabling African states, with a combined GDP of 3.4 trillion US Dollars and 1.3 billion population, to trade among themselves rather than current overseas trade. Second, by enhancing Africa’s dwindling contribution to the global economy, which, naïve comparisons claim to currently be 3 percent in comparison to 38, 30, 23, 4, and 2 percent for Asia, North-America, Europe, South-America, and Oceania, respectively. The African Continental Free Trade Area realization is further being given impetus by African Union’s declaration of 2023 as the year of accelerating the African Continental Free Trade Area’s implementation [35,36,37,38].

As a necessary condition for the African Continental Free Trade Area’s realization, the African Union proposed 34 TTCs across Africa. By proposing the 34 TTCs, the continental body is seen to prioritize intra-continental linkage as an African Continental Free Trade Area enabler through ensuring seamless continent-wide trade-flows as well as simultaneously supporting regional integration, political cooperation, and spatial development on the continent, among other multiple objectives [39]. The multiple objectives include bridging the continental transport infrastructure deficit, overcoming geographical constraints to sixteen landlocked countries, pursuing developmental sustainability for poverty reduction, diminishing regional development gaps, and enhancing benefits while reducing attendant costs of globalization [40].

Among the 34 proposed TTCs across Africa, this study centers on the Great Equatorial Landbridge (GELB), a proposed TTC spanning 6497 Kilometers. Though GELB is proposed as a multi-modal facility hosting a highway, high-voltage power lines, railway, and gas pipelines, this research is limited to its highway component. Specifically, GELB highway is planned to provide a link from the Atlantic Ocean in West Africa to the Indian Ocean in the East while traversing five nations. The five GELB project nations shown in Figure 1 include Cameroon, Central African Republic, South-Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. In 2015, the eastern portion of the GHP across Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan was identified among 11 projects whose delivery is to be politically championed because of their high development potential [41,42].

GHP is proposed as a policy tool for regional trade enablement and development stimuli. However, existing literature explaining the slow-construction of East-Europe portion of the Trans-European Transport Network, or low-operating speed and flood-related disruption on North-Lao section of the Greater Mekong Subregion corridors indicate that the TTC project could be vulnerable to adverse effects of multiple risks and uncertain events [27,43,44]. This implies that implementing the proposed GHP will not be without risks and will be compromised if project risks and uncertain events occur. Yet, to date, risks that may impede the successful implementation of the proposed GHP are unknown.

Considering the developmental aspirations hinged on realizing the GHP and its elevated profile, a ‘no-project scenario’ may not be feasible. To enhance the likelihood of successful implementation, it is crucial to thoroughly assess project risks before developing the GHP. This proactive approach allows for a better understanding and management of potential hazards that may arise during the project’s execution. [45]. While it may not be possible to predict all the unavoidable risks that would inhibit the GHP, the present study attempts to suggest an ex-ante framework to identify and determine important project risks.

2. Brief Review of Literature on Risks to the Implementation of TTC Projects

To determine the potential risks affecting the implementation of the proposed GHP, we relied on peer-reviewed articles and agency reports. We particularly focused on critical factors for TTC operation and performance mentioned in literature from regional transport planning, regional integration, and international trade and logistics. We searched for literature pertaining to transnational corridors and identified associated risks. The literature search continued until the saturation level was achieved, meaning that further readings did not reveal additional risks.

Fundamentally, there is concurrence within reviewed literature that all projects face risks, and transport projects are no exception. Several authors, including [46,47,48,49] affirm that risk and uncertainty are systemic to transport projects. A number of these studies have examined risks to the implementation of highway projects [50,51], while others have particularly investigated risks associated with transboundary highway links [21,27,44,52,53].

The reviewed literature have highlighted risk factors related to over ten projects. These are: Primorsky No 1and 2 international Transport corridor across China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, China-Pakistan-Iran-Turkey International Corridor, Chi-na-Pakistan Economic corridor, Brazil-Guyana Corridor, Trans-oceanic Highway, Ori-ent/East Med corridor, Nacala Corridor, Trans-Saharan Road Corridor, Doua-la-Yaoundé-Central African Republic-N’djamena International Corridor, East-West Cor-ridor of Great-Mekong Subregion, Abidjan-Ouagadougou-Bamako Corridor, Tema-Ouagadougou-Bamako transport Corridor and Bothnian corridor. TTC interventions by regions and geographic disposition that were considered include Great Mekong Subregion Corridors, Northern and Central corridors in East Africa, One Belt One Road corridors, Central African Economic and Monetary Community regional corridor, Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation corridors, and Trans-European Transport Network corridors [1,2,21,25,27,29,44,54,55,56,57,58]. According to the literature, TTC projects are susceptible to environmental, technological, social, economic, geographical, and political risks that are outlined in

Table 1. Risks associated with TTC interventions as mentioned in literature.

Risk Category	Description	References
Environmental risks	Existing flora, fauna as natural project barriers to TTC construction, lifelong exposure of the corridor to current and unknown future climate diversity of the multiple regions it traverses, as well as extreme weather events that shorten corridor lifespan or disrupt its operation, such as floods and desert sun	[2,23,44,59]
Political risks	Conflict, insecurity, unpredictable political support, variation in administrative regimes, stakeholder composition, decision making levels, national/global priorities as well as uncoordinated regional development planning	[17,25,53,60]
Technology risks	Use of improper construction methods, inadequate labor skills, losing importance to other modes, inefficient equipment operation, fragmented standards hindering regional-scale interoperability, unpredictable input availability, cost/time overrun due to re-working and necessity of complex design installations such as tunnels, overpasses, and barriers.	[13,30,57]
Social risks	Community objection to the project due anticipated inequality in benefit distribution, spending on the project at detriment of welfare-related sectors, threats to human/animal safety, varied stakeholder interests, settlement displacement, and constrained access by fees or physical barriers, and expected displacement.	[12,31,61,62]
Economic risks	Aspects that limit project funding, undermine its economic viability, or threaten its lifetime sustenance. Among them, unequal benefit sharing among project states, public budget deficits, the uncertainty of currency/exchange rate fluctuation, error in cost/time estimation, regional economic imbalance, and dependance on a single donor	[1,21,54]
Geographic risks	Uneven topography, undocumented geological conditions, hydrological patterns that should not be altered, locations vulnerable to erosion, landslides, slope/embankment failure, as well as variable terrain and natural features that put constrains on TTC design, optimal alignment, and elevation.	[27,44,52]

.

Beyond the commonly agreed headings of economic, political, environmental, so-cial, and technological under which TTC risks are considered, the literature classifies TTC project risks in six other ways. These are project risks by: individual projects; region/geographic disposition; economic classification of countries such as low and middle-income countries; demand-side, supply-side or contextual risks; different project phases, namely planning, construction, and operation; internal or external risks; and lastly through discussion of TTC projects in general.

Specific deficiencies that render previous TTC risk research unfit for ex-ante GHP risk investigation include: predominant focus on projects in Europe and Asia, implementation post TTC development, thereby limiting the chance of risk-informed project conceptualization, reliance on researchers’ experience to identify project risk leading to the the use of ‘typical’ or contextually insensitive variables, non-comprehensiveness due to broad consideration of risk factors that limits deeper examination, consideration of risks only in monetary terms, focus on singular risk, poor alignment with risk management frameworks, and not being packaged as communication medium towards risk-burden sharing [27,44,52].

In summary, a review of previous literature reveals that ex-ante risk investigation for TTC has been under-researched and suggests the need for further comparison of critical project factors among different TTC projects located in different regions [63,64]. Previous studies have emphasized the presence of multiple risks in TTC projects. However, there is a lack of consensus on which risks should be prioritized to ensure the success of these projects. To the best of our knowledge, no multivariate TTC risk research has been undertaken for transnational highways in Africa. Hence, this study aims to bridge the gap by proposing a conceptual framework to proactively assess and identify the key risks associated with the proposed highway project.

3. Materials and Methods

As the GHP has not yet been implemented, it was necessary to prospectively identify and weigh potential risks that would likely be encountered during project implementation. Therefore, the present study adopted a mixed-method approach, with expert input and literature findings being the main data sources. The research methodology shown in Figure 2 is explained in detail in Section 3.1 and Section 3.2.

3.1. Delphi Method for Risk Identification by Experts

Identifying potential risks to the GHP is vital since subsequent GHP risk analysis depends on this step. Risk factors likely to influence the implementation of the GHP were collated from previous studies (as mentioned in Section 2). However, owing to the un-developed status of the GHP and the existing literature’s insufficiency concerning GHP risks, this study adopted the Delphi framework to guide the prospective identification of project risks from experts. Delphi framework was adopted for its proven efficiency in exploratory studies with research questions inclined to examine uncertain events and risks.

In addition to Delphi’s characteristics of cyclic feedback, anonymity, ability to maximize the variety of expert opinions, and collegiate analysis of expert input, Delphi framework was adopted due to its efficacy as a consensus-making approach widely used in risk factor identification within different fields such as transportation, healthcare, energy, construction, supply chain, and product development [65,66,67].

Emulating [68], the Delphi framework was utilized to identify and seek consensus among geographically detached experts, the majority of whom are domiciled within the region of planned GHP implementation. This was attempted as the validity of the results is dependent on the intricacies of the context within which potential risks occur. This strategy is supported by earlier research such as [69], where input of experts from the project context was prioritized while identifying potential risks using a three-dimensional framework, and [70] that used a three-phase methodology employing brainstorming, expert interview, and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method to investigate critical factors. Further, the value of using a structured methodology to identify and evaluate risks was demonstrated by [71].

Thus, to fulfill the research aim of prospectively identifying and ranking influential risks in a credible and consistent way, two consecutive Phases of Delphi that targeted both French and English-speaking experts were utilized. The first-phase Delphi was used to gather insights from knowledgeable individuals with experience in cross-border transport research, highway project design and construction, as well as in logistics management. The screening criteria for the practitioner as an expert participant was a minimum of 10-years experience in project design or logistic management. Thirteen geographically-detached experts from Africa and two participants from Asia fulfilled this criterion (See the Supplementary Materials).

The input from 15 expert interviews was thereafter augmented with the TTC project risks derived from literature, making a total of 67 risk factors that were categorized under seven categories. The second-phase Delphi involved circulating the 67 risk factors under seven categories to 15 experts via a Google-form, to seek consensus among them through review feedback. In summary, literature review and Delphi surveys were used to identify potential GHP risks.

3.2. Weighting Risk Factors Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) formulated by Saaty in 1988 is well-known and widely used by researchers to evaluate both qualitative and quantitative criteria and stakeholder preferences in decision-making processes [72]. In addition to enabling the conversion of qualitative criteria such as environmental quality to a number by using ordinal or continuous scale, AHP is widely used in solving complex problems. Among the complex problems that AHP could be useful to solve include those entailing conflicting criteria, such as risk analysis. Indeed, AHP offers a hierarchy-based approach to break down complex issues. Three principles of AHP are: (a) defining the structure of the model, (b) comparative judgment of alternatives and criteria, and (c) synthesis of priorities [71]. Its application has been expanded by different disciplines and areas, such as resource management, corporate policy and strategy, public policy, energy planning, logistics, and transportation engineering [73]. Overall, AHP is a powerful, flexible, and adaptable decision-making method well-suited for risk analysis and quantifying risk factors.

This study followed the following AHP steps:

• Defining the research problem into a three-level hierarchical structure, with the research objective of investigating risks to the GHP at the top-most level, decision criteria consisting of seven broad-risk factors in the second level, and 61 specific risks at the third level
• Adopting a rating scale of 1–9, as shown in

  Table 2. Study rating scale.

  Importance on an Absolute Scale	Description
  1	Factor A and B have equal effect on the GELB project.
  3	Chosen factor has a low effect on the GELB project.
  5	Chosen factor has a medium effect on the GELB project.
  7	Chosen factor has a high effect on the GELB project.
  9	Chosen factor has a very high effect on the GELB project.
  2, 4, 6, 8	A compromise between two factors is necessary.

  . The table is commonly used in MCDM Pairwise comparison to judge the importance of factors/criteria. Number 1 denotes equal importance, number 2 least importance, and number 9 extremely important.
• With the AHP hierarchical structure developed, pairwise comparisons among risk factors were conducted to determine their relative importance. Forty-five experts, including those who had participated in the Delphi surveys, were invited to conduct the pairwise comparisons at two levels. The first level of AHP comparison was among broad risk factors, and the second level of comparison was among individual risks under each broad factor. The sum of weights of broad factors equals 1. The same applies to individual risks.
• Consistency check: excel sheets containing expert pairwise comparison scores were analyzed using an online AHP tool from https://bpmsg.com/ with an inbuilt eigenvector computation capability. The consistency index was calculated for expert judgments while observing the 0.1% permissible consistency ratio.

4. Results

4.1. Identified Risk Factors to the GHP

As explained in the methodology section, risk factors mentioned in previous literature were aug-mented with potential project risks identified by experts thorough the first-phase Delphi. Thereafter, the second-phase Delphi was undertaken to seek consensus on identified risk factors in terms of identity, phrasing and categorization. In the second-phase Delphi, six risk factors underwent merging, re-classification under different categories, or were dropped. Ultimately, sixty-one (61) risk factors under seven (7) categories as listed in

Table 3. Potential GHP risk factors from consensus of expert input and literature.

	Criteria (Broad Risk Factors)	Sub-Criteria (Individual Risk Factors)
1	Economic risk	Ec1: dependance on scarce government finance with few alternatives
		Ec2: fiscally strong states emasculating economically weak
		Ec3: forex loss through import of project inputs/labor
		Ec4: inability to agree on benefit/cost sharing related to common facility
		Ec5: user-fees to limit access if community/users unable/unwilling to pay
		Ec6: budgetary focus inclined to expansion and new roads than maintenance
		Ec7: fluctuation of exchange rate and construction material prices
		Ec8: economic vulnerability related to export of low-value primary commodities
2	Political risk	Po1: insecurity, instability, and conflict
		Po2: border check evasion due to informal crossing points
		Po3: policy non-alignment within government and at different government levels
		Po4: weak institutions to oversee implementation
		Po5: dissimilar regulation on border inspection, axle-load and taxation
		Po6: inability to observe regional arrangements due to national interests
		Po7: corruption impact on construction quality and operation
		Po8: re-alignment/design variation by agitating activists/politicians/communities
		Po9: commitment fluctuation from administrative change /geopolitical realignment
3	Land-use risk	Lu1: speculative land buying to constrain land acquisition
		Lu2: likely split of existing settlements and livelihood activity displacement
		Lu3: hard to determine who/how to compensate when acquiring communal land
		Lu4: perceived unfair land compensation/some regions to benefit more than others
		Lu5: corridor efficiency limited by encroachment/ weak development control
		Lu6: perception Land tenure change will prohibit land use and access
		Lu7: limited access to/from international highway will kill existing settlements
		Lu8: communal/informal land tenure limits taxation of ‘gains in property value
		Lu9: weak land management. Less protection against land expropriation by state
4	Technological risk	Tc1: variation among states in highway classification by purpose & capacity
		Tc2: breach of operation technology/telecommuting making redundant human movement
		Tc3: evolving technology rendering construction/maintenance/operation equipment obsolete
		Tc4: necessity for tunnels/overpass/barriers in flora/fauna/water-body/settlement areas
		Tc5: use of monopolistic foreign contractor limiting technology transfer to local firms /citizens
		Tc6: favoring politically-popular but inefficient human labor
		Tc7: delays/downtime due to low-utilization of efficient border clearance technology
		Tc8: disrupted supply of equipment/parts due to pandemics/unavailability of local dealers
		Tc9: construction preceding design preparation and engineering model review
5	Geographic risk	Ge1: lateritic/soft rock/fragile soils with low load-bearing capacity
		Ge2: flood-prone/waterlogged/areas necessitating costly foundation designs
		Ge3: diverse terrain increase design and technology complexity
		Ge4: crossing seismic active Great Rift Valley
		Ge5: landslide/flooding and erosion potentially disrupt project schedule/ operations
		Ge6: traversing mining areas with active blasting/ explosions
		Ge7: sparse/detached settlement pattern unfeasible to link with GHP
		Ge8: low consideration of sub-surface condition/undocumented geological quality
		Ge8: geopolitical consideration of route choice/alignment
6	Social risk	So1: disrupted social interaction by settlement split/displacement
		So2: perception that benefits are unlikely to trickle equally to local communities
		So3: loss of work/opportunity to immigrants due to inadequate skill/language barrier
		So4: hard to identify project-affected-persons due to conflict/environmental migration
		So5: high-speed traffic and dangerous goods carriage threaten human safety/livelihood
		So6: crowding out local population due to increased cost of basic goods/services
		So7: low per-capita income levels limits revenue mobilization from taxation
		So8: imminent food insecurity if farmers switch to non-farming activity
7	Environmental risk	En1: extreme weather events (floods/hot-sun/humidity) that could shorten corridor lifespan
		En2: requirement to avoid altering existing hydrology/flora/fauna/migratory corridors
		En3: crossing diverse climate zones increase design complexity and maintenance cost
		En4: enhanced access to aggravate poaching, illegal lumbering, and mining
		En5: disasters due to weather related events
		En6: ecosystem resources degradation by settlement densification/immigrants’ influx
		En7: human induced landslide, soil erosion and water-body sedimentation
		En8: climate change induced variation of local weather patterns
		En9: requirement to safeguard communities/ecosystems against emissions

were agreed to and formed the main data for subsequent analysis.

4.2. Weighted Risk Factors

We first used a two-phase Delphi process and literature review to identify potential risks that would be encountered during the GHP implementation. We then subjected the identified risks to AHP analysis to determine their relative importance. Specifically, AHP was employed to provide a hierarchical breakdown of potential risks and calculate the weights of risk factors with a consistency ratio less than 10%. Results for broad and individual GELB Highway Project Risks (GHPR) factors are presented in the Supplementary Materials. We present and discuss results on important project risks in the remainder of this section.

4.2.1. The Rank of Important Regional-Scale Broad Risk Categories

About broad risk factors, results in

Table 4. Rank of important regional-scale risk factors across all categories.

Broad Factor	Individual Risk Factor	Weight	Rank
Economic	Ec1: dependance on scarce government finance with few alternatives	0.0233	1
	Ec6: budgetary focus on expansion/new road than maintenance	0.0223	2
	Ec8: economic vulnerability related to export of low-value primary commodities	0.0219	3
Political	Po1: insecurity/instability and conflict	0.0196	1
	Po7: corruption impact on construction quality and operation	0.0193	2
	Po4: weak institutions to oversee implementation	0.0190	3
Land-use	Lu3: hard to determine who/how to compensate when acquiring communal land	0.0154	1
	Lu5: corridor efficiency limited by encroachment/ weak development control	0.0153	2
	Lu9: weak land management. Less protection against land expropriation by state	0.0151	3
Technological	Tc4: necessity of tunnels/overpass/barriers in flora/fauna/waterbody/settlements areas	0.0155	1
	Tc7: delays/downtime due to low-utilization of efficient border clearance technology	0.0148	2
	Tc9: construction preceding design preparation and engineering model review	0.0145	3
Geographic	Ge5: landslide, flooding, erosion events, delay project schedule/disrupt operations	0.0178	1
	Ge3: diverse terrain increase design and technology complexity	0.0175	1
	Ge2: flood-prone/waterlogged areas necessitating costly foundation designs	0.0173	3
Social	So1: disrupted social interaction by settlement split/displacement	0.0137	1
	So9: community resistance due to incompatible interests/anticipated crime/disease rise	0.0133	2
	So2: perception that benefits are unlikely to trickle equally to local communities	0.0132	3
Environmental	En3: crossing diverse climate zones increase design complexity and maintenance cos	0.0170	1
	En1: extreme weather events (floods/hot-sun/humidity),could shorten corridor lifespan	0.0167	2
	En2: requirement to avoid altering hydrological pattern/flora/fauna/migratory corridor	0.0166	3

and Figure 3 show that risks under the economic category are the most important inhibitors to the GHP implementation. Economic risk is followed in relative importance by political and geographic risks.

• Economic risk (Ec): Is important since individual countries’ participation in the GHP is dependent on whether they can benefit economically from selling commodities to other countries. Yet, project nations consist of economies that either produce almost similar climate-sensitive agricultural export commodities or are based on finite oil and mineral resources. In addition, it is uncertain if all project nations will contribute counterpart funding toward project realization. Further, the high weight of economic risks points to the upfront requirement of huge-sunk costs to construct, sustain operations, and periodically maintain the highway against current fiscal shrinkage.
• Considering the capital-intensive nature of the GHP, three key factors are likely to limit project financing. These are: predominant reliance on government funds (Ec1), devoting budgetary allocations to new road construction rather than maintaining existing ones (Ec6), and low economic diversification, which essentially makes project nations price-takers in the export of primary commodities (Ec8).
• Reliance on government funds will be an insecure source of project financing for two reasons. First is the shrinking exchequer capacities, which means the GHP will compete for scarce resources with other national sectoral demands such as education and health. Second, the perceived demand-inelastic fuel levy tax and tolling as the common channels for obtaining road sector revenue among project nations could reduce with the imminent transition toward decarbonization and avoidance of toll stations to ensure corridor efficiency. On the other hand, the inclination of road sector funding to new roads means that the GHP could suffer from a lack of routine maintenance, thereby hastening its dilapidation.
• Third, relates to the likely negative effect on projected revenues and planned rate of return from the volatility associated with the export of raw commodities, a critical source of government revenue among project nations. For instance, Sudan’s shutting of oil pipeline denied the South Sudanese government oil revenue, which finances about 98% of its national budget.
• Political risk (Po), which ranks second among broad risk factors in relative importance, describes that insecurity, variation in regulatory arrangements, and discordance among priorities of individual countries will hamper the GHP’s successful implementation. Findings from analysis of individual political risks show exposure to incidences of insecurity (Po1), corruption impact on highway quality and operation (Po7), and weak institutions to oversee implementation (Po4) to have the highest rank in relative importance among political risks.
• Among incidences of insecurity that the GHP implementation is likely to be exposed to include: the Anglocameroon conflict and Boko-haram insurgency in Cameroon, political instability and rebel disruption of the highway and customs activity in Central African Republic, political conflict in South-Sudan, ethnic conflict in Ethiopia, the Al-shabab insurgency in Northern Kenya, as well as contagion effect of project nations being in close proximity to conflict hotspots. Among the conflict hotspots that present contagion effects to the GHP include Chad, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somali.
• The second most important political project risk, corruption’s impact on highway quality and operation, is likely to present in the form of unethical practices related to procuring contractors, padding of project costs, recruiting labor, falsifying project progress to enable payment, purchasing inputs, erecting illegal roadblocks, bribing for exceeding permissible loads, unqualified driving, driving unroadworthy trucks, and smuggling contraband goods at border posts. Such unethical practices can result in poor corridor construction quality, equipment malfunctions, increased project expenses and delays, the introduction of invasive species, deterioration of highways, illegal cross-border activities involving humans and animals, and reduced efficiency that leads to higher operating costs.
• The third most important political risk is the probability of weak institutions being tasked to oversee the GHP implementation (Po4). Entities tasked with overseeing the GHP implementation could be inadequate to perform this role due to a lack of financial and administrative maneuverability and inefficient personnel composition. Lacking financial maneuverability means that funding of their operations depends on exchequer allocation from the resource-inadequate project states. As a demonstration of lacking administrative maneuverability, these institutions are likely to make unbinding decisions that are not enforced among the project states.
• Geographic risk (Ge): Following political risk, in relative importance to the GHP implementation, is Geographic risk. Considering that the GHP will linearly be developed upon space and used by heavy cargo trucks, geographic risks will exhibit in the form of limitations posed by uneven terrain, physiographic obstacles, diverse landforms, and tropical soil formation of high moisture content and different load-bearing strength.
• Further, geographic characteristics along the GHP route ranging from flat plains in Kenya, rolling hills and mountains in Ethiopia, flood plains in South Sudan and the Central African Republic to desert plains and mountains in Cameroon, increase the GHP’s exposure risks such as landslide and flooding.
• If the GHP faces geographic risks, it may obstruct the route’s optimal alignment (vertical and horizontal and length), induce differences in local micro-climate, increase highway length, and require the construction of complex features like tunnels, viaducts, and bridges. For instance, the distance between Moyale on Kenya-Ethiopia border to Addis Ababa is 612 km in a straight line. However, highway curvature to circumvent hills and mountains increases the road distance to 794 km. This highlights how hilly terrains as geographic obstacles can cause elongation of highway length and impact factors such as gradient, choice of construction method, vehicle operation cost, maintenance frequency, and accident count due to limited sight distance (blind spots) at uphill gradients.

4.2.2. Important Project Risk by Country-Level Comparison

Multilateral development agencies propose TTCs as regional transport policy tools. However, while TTC project design is undertaken at regional scale, their implementation largely depends on conditioning variables within individual project nations [74]. When analyzing individual countries, the findings of this study support [75] which states that the risks faced during project implementation will differ in type and severity depending on the country. To illustrate this, we use a country-level comparison of significant disruption among individual project risk trends under specific broad risk as seen in Figure 4. Noteworthy issues from this figure are as follows:

• Economic sub-risk (Ec8), as explained in Section 4.2.1, harnessing economic benefits from trade among the project countries, could be constrained by similarity of export commodities they produce and reliance on finite resources such as oil and minerals. Therefore, the low manufacturing activity, minimal value addition and less eco-nomic diversification puts four project nations (Cameroon, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Kenya) at risk of limited funding to GHP. This is particularly the case if returns on the GHP investment are premised on uncertain export revenue due to unpredictability of commodity demand and pricing. However, Ethiopia’s low Ec8 risk rank is attributable to the technology transfer and structural transformation of its economy because it is a leading regional destination for manufacturing-oriented foreign direct investment inflows [76,77].
• Political sub-risk Po8, presents another example of GHPR variation among project nations. In tandem with [78], like the change of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project route within Pakistan from Western to Eastern route due to development disparities and security concerns, the GHP is likely to have its alignment changed in Cameroon and Kenya. This alludes to advocacy space/global democracy index positions among the project nations, with Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Cameroon ranking at positions 94,122,144,164 and 140, respectively [79].
• On the geographic sub-risk (Ge3), Ethiopia is found to have significantly higher levels of risk related to terrain unevenness compared to other project nations, confirming its extensively rugged and varied topography which includes some of Africa’s highest elevations and deepest depressions (about 4620 m Above Sea-Level and 116 Meters Below Sea-Level respectively) [80]. Further, to overcome sections of interspersed hills and flood plains along the 341 km Nadapal-Juba highway (geographically adjacent to Ethiopia), construction of 22 bridges and 200 box-culverts is required [81].

In the reminder of this section, we have provided more country-specific details.

Cameroon

Approximately 876 km of the proposed GHP will traverse Cameroon, whose participation in the GHP could be motivated by the twin objectives of enhancing regional trade and optimizing the utility of the new Kribi deep sea port. Within Cameroon, GHP is likely to encounter economic risk in terms of minimal diversification of project financing apart from scarce government funds, low-priority of allocation for highway maintenance, and uncertain return on investment because trading with the Central African Republic could be hindered by its inability to build and guarantee safe-operation of GHP section within its territory. On political risks, Cameroon is likely to disagree with partner nations on what should be adopted as the common parameters on border inspection, highway levying, and permissible axle load with regard to the GHP.

A significant number of existing settlements, dense tropical forests, and wildlife reservation areas will constitute physical and natural barriers to the GHP and, therefore, not only add to project cost but also trigger GHP risks related to land-use risk, environment, technology, and society. Land use risk will present in the expectation to ensure the project does not split existing settlements such as Douala, Yaounde, and Bertoua nor starve them of linkage to the GHP amidst the current lean feeder network. Environmental risk will present in the form of sea level rise and crossing diverse climatic zones. Some of these zones host forests and wildlife areas, which will require complex structures such as overpasses. Further, flora and fauna areas and high soil moisture content levels could cause technological risks. Risks will also arise from politicians who (for political gain) are likely to demand that the project incorporates a sizeable human-labor component to accommodate the increasing number of unemployed youth. The main Social risk to GHP in Cameroon relates to community resistance due to conflicting interests.

Central African Republic

The tentative length of the proposed GHP within the Central African Republic is approximately 1970 km. Being a landlocked country, the motivation for Central African Republic’s participation in the GHP is to achieve an assured export link to the global market. Within the Central African Republic, GHP will encounter risks related to insecurity and state fragility due to civil war, weak economic performance, dense hydrological network, sparse settlement pattern, and low-local labor skill capacity. The protracted civil wars and weak economic performance will likely limit the Central African Republic’s ability to develop the highway section within its territory and even guarantee the safe passage of freight trucks. The 2020 incident where armed rebels attacked Beloko Customs checkpoint on Bangui-Douala corridor and destroyed 30 trucks, for instance, could make operators reluctant to use the highway due to difficulty in obtaining sufficient insurance coverage. Environmental risk in terms of frequent floods and dense hydrological patterns imply that the highway could be rendered impassable by high water levels, which in addition to disrupting operations, may also cause deterioration of highway paving and erosion of its base. The dense hydrology to be preserved will trigger economic and technological risks associated with. These will be related to the need for investment in culverts and pile foundations, elevating roads to ensure adequate drainage, and using paving materials that are resilient to high levels of precipitation. Owing to the low-labor skill levels and low-population density, it is likely that workers for the project may be sourced from other countries, which may cause a loss of foreign exchange through labor import.

South Sudan

South-sudan will host approximately 970 km of proposed GHP. Like the Central African Republic, South-Sudan’s landlockedness could be the main motivation to participate in the GHP. In the pursuit of an alternative route to export its crude oil rather than port Sudan, South Sudan is simultaneously eyeing Djibouti Port in Lamu Port in Kenya. In South Sudan, GHP is likely to encounter economic risks of limited project funding. In addition, risk of unassured return on investment could occur. This is because while South Sudan imports from Kenya and Ethiopia, trade with the Central African Republic hardly exists due to the poor state of the road network between South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Being a young nation, the urgency to address local priorities such as quelling civil war and infrastructure provision is likely to hinder South Sudan’s participation in the GHP and affect its ability to guarantee the safety and efficiency of its operation. Further, due to weak development regulation and rampant road-side trade, the right of way is likely to be encroached. South Sudan’s location in the Nile basin and poorly vegetated floodplains present the GHP with environmental risks of two types. First that highway design is to ensure existing hydrology is not altered. Second, it aggravates South-Sudan’s susceptibility to the environmental risk of increased incidences of floods which could either render GHP unusable or cause erosion of highway foundations or quick deterioration of paving. Further, this implies an increased technological risk for the GHP due to the need for highway structures that can withstand high precipitation and water-logged soils. The human displacements caused by floods coupled with the ongoing civil war increase the risk of difficulty in identifying the affected persons who migrate due to conflict or environmental reasons. Finally, to overcome the interspersed hills and floodplains along the 341 km Nadapal-Juba Highway (Geographically adjacent to Ethiopia), construction of 22 bridges and 200 box culverts is required.

Ethiopia

The approximate length of the Ethiopia section of the GHP is 790 km. For landlocked Ethiopia, investing in the GHP will fulfill two objectives. These are to provide an alternative outlet to the sea through the Kenyan ports of Lamu and Mombasa and provide a link to serve the coffee plantations in Southern Ethiopia as well as the industrial park at Hawassa. In Ethiopia, the GHP will also face the economic risk of low allocation of resources to maintenance. On Political risk, in addition to incidences of insecurity, the construction quality and operation efficiency is likely to be affected by corrupt practices. GHP is also likely to encounter land use risks in terms of difficult determination of whom to compensate especially given fluid tenure arrangements among livestock keeping communities in southern Ethiopia. Geographic risks are exemplified by Ethiopia’s intricate and highly variable terrain that is likely to trigger technological and environmental risks to GHP. Technological risk will entail extensive use of complex technologies and structures necessary for mountain tunneling, slope stabilization, and sufficient drainage. On the other hand, environmental risk is related to crossing multiple climatic zones, with each zone requiring different technical design and maintenance measures.

Kenya

Kenya will host approximately 1900 km of the GHP. Beyond enhancing regional trade, Kenyan motivation is to promote development in its underdeveloped, sparsely inhabitted, and insecure arid region to its North East to foster lasting peace. In Kenya, the GHP is likely to encounter the economic risk of a limited budget for maintenance. While Northern Kenya experiences isolated insecurity incidents, an important political risk relates to route change and project redesign arising from political/community agitation. Further, conflicts may arise due to the fluid land-use arrangements among pastoralist communities in Northen Kenya. It is also likely for Kenyan politicians to demand that the project be restructured to uptake low-skill labor-intensive components to absorb unemployed youth. The risk of stranded infrastructure could also occur since Northern Kenya’s sparse settlement pattern could make it unfeasible to link the GHP with existing settlements. A likely social risk that could make Kenyan communities object to the GHP is that they may perceive disparities in obtaining project benefits. Also, a potential environmental risk that the GHP will encounter in Kenya is changing weather patterns, such as increased rainfall on the Kenyan coast that could submerge port infrastructure or progressive heating of the arid north, which could cause pavement buckling.

5. Discussion

Literature shows a rise in TTC projects, where project champions emphasize the expected benefits and overlook potential obstacles to successful project implementation. Review of underperforming TTC projects demonstrates that among aspects that could impede TTC projects is their enhanced exposure to project risks due to novelty, size, cost, context, multiple actors, and long- lifespan. However, while multiple project risks that TTC projects are exposed to are unavoidable, it is possible to manage them and minimize their adverse consequence on the project if information about their identity and likely consequence is known beforehand.

Save for a handful research articles and agency reports, ex-ante risk investigation for TTC projects has been under-researched, with less prevalence of such research in the Global South. Thus, the present study concurs with previous research on two fronts. First, little attention has been paid to anticipation, forecasting, control, and management of project risk in TTC and mega-transport projects. Second, controlling and managing project risks are necessary to ensure minimal disruptions during the project cycle and boost the chances of project success [18,20]. However, while concurring with previous studies, this study points out that no researcher has noted the absence of a dedicated TTC or highway risk management standard or articulated if risk management standard, as practiced in health and safety or environmental management for instance, could ameliorate the insufficient risk consideration challenge [45,82,83].

The present study focused on examining important risks that would be encountered during project implementation. To identify potential risks, literature was reviewed, and a two-phase Delphi process was conducted. Thereafter, 61 risk factors under 7 categories were subjected to an AHP pairwise comparison. Consistency checks were then conducted to test the credibility of study model and subsequent results.

Study findings based on AHP weight calculation show that environmental, political, economic, land-use, social, technological, and geographic risks are among project risks whose occurrence will likely compromise the GHP’s successful implementation. Emphasis, however, is to be placed on prioritizing the control of economic, political, geographic and land-use risks respectively, as they are the most important project risks among the multiple risks.

By examining risks prior to project implementation, this study has not only been able to address the research question, but also confirmed findings of earlier studies that the most important risks to TTC projects are of political and economic nature. However, contrary to TTC projects in Europe and Asia, where Political risk is documented to be the most important, this study finds economic risks to be of critical importance to GHP implementation. This finding has three implications. First, GHP risk examination cannot use pre-determined risk values. Therefore, it is impossible to make decisions concerning the GHP based on existing projects of similar typology. Second, it affirms that akin to the International North-South Transport Corridor linking India, Iran Azerbaijan and Russia, the prime motivation for GHP is economic, and specifically opening landlocked states to global trade. Third, it indicates that diversifying sources of highway project financing is necessary to ensure the longevity and cost-effectiveness of GHP. Neglecting maintenance or incurring excessive operation cost coulds undermine their potential benefits and bankability. Further, economic risk points to the cost overrun risk which is documented to globally be at minimum 20%, and whose prevalence is reported to be higher in developing nations (20–35% in Africa) [84,85,86].

Particularly for GHP, the economic risks will be compounded by several factors such as low economic density, which means that the GHP would encounter risks related to geographically stranded infrastructure and low returns on investment in sparsely settled areas, high proportion of project cost being devoted to land acquisition and compensation, high charges/levies charged to transporters, and depletion of forex and the use of substantial amounts of money to buy foreign currency so as to pay for foreign currency denominated loans. This finding suggests the necessity to attune regional transport policy with existing spatial organization and regional development policy towards stimulating growth of robust economic nodes and development axes [21,26].

Findings show that GHP’s implementation will encounter political risks, being second in terms of relative importance after economic risks. Political risks, such as insecurity, inability to honor regional obligations and corruption are expected to limit the success of the GHP. This is supported by findings of [87,88,89] which indicate that insecurity concerns related to the Ivorian Crisis from 2002–2011 and the Central African Republic civil war caused the abandonment of Abidjan-Ouagadougou-Bamako Corridor in favor of Tema-Ouagadougou-Bamako corridor and led to the Central African Republic’s inability to raise counterpart funding toward the implementation of the Douala-Bangui Corridor project. Additionally, bribery has increased operator costs and delivery delays for TTC in Mali, negatively impacting efficiency along these corridors.

Further, the possibility of GHP route modification because of political risks, such as local agitation, policy inconsistency, and global geopolitical shifts, was highlighted in this study. This finding aligns with proposals for adjustments to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Trans-European Transport Network, and Nadapal-Juba corridors. The change in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s route is attributed to instability and development disparity across Pakistan, whereas the proposed realignments in the Juba-Nadapal, and Trans-European Transport Networkcorridors were influenced by policy mismatch among government levels, Brexit, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine [78,81,90]. We observed no similarity with previous research on this study’s finding that there is a likelihood of an incapable institution being tasked with overseeing GHP project implementation. Drawing a parallel to well-functioning Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation TTC secretariats, this finding provides a reflection on the variation of governance structures within the GHP context when compared to TTC project contexts in Europe and Asia.

Geographic risks to the TTC projects have narrowly been discussed to mean the limitations posed by diverse topography and uneven terrain on highway design, choice of construction technology, and vehicle operating speed. However, deficiency was found in overlooking unstable geological formation and subsurface geological aspects despite their significance in road load-bearing capacity, soil erodibility, and ground stability related to soil potential for swell and shrink. The disconnect was further noted between how terrain affects local weather and implications on road design and paving parameters. For instance, the plains in Northern Cameroon have a high potential for solar radiation, which may lead to rapid drying and deterioration of basal aggregates. Similar to the Great-Mekong Subregion corridor section in Northern Laos (National road 13), extensively rugged terrain may cause GHP’s collapse in addition to making highway maintenance intricate and costly. The study findings further suggest that the geographical risk of terrain obstacles may vary even within a country. This result contradicts [52] on the regional generalization of geographic risks.

TTC risk studies also account for technological uncertainty, including concerns about equipment and material availability or the effectiveness of implementation methods. We could, however, not identify how researchers address risks posed by evolving and advanced technology used for surveillance, communication, vehicular locomotion, multi-use of highway, and progressive increase in load-capacity. While surveillance and communication technologies can hasten communication and boost operational monitoring, they could inadvertently render TTC facilities vulnerable to breaches and hacking of security and communication installations. In addition, transition to high-capacity carriers with efficient locomotion technology requires a change of highway design and construction methods.

Previous TTC risk studies bear semblance on common risk typologies that TTC projects are susceptible to and are documented under Section 2 of the present research. However, to reflect the context-specific nature of regional transport policy, TTC risk studies could consider additional risk criteria described by multilateral development agencies. Those include risks of stranded infrastructure, risks of narrow project objectives, and risks associated with the difficult land acquisition, as this study has captured in individual risk factors Ge7, Ge8, and the Land use broad risk factor.

Research has shown that effectively managing project risks is crucial for the success of TTC projects, similar to typical highway projects. However, this study argues that by virtue of their cross-border nature, the success of TTC projects depends not only on cost-effective risk control but also on the fair distribution of risk management responsibilities among participating countries.

6. Conclusions

The prospect of GHP encountering various project risks, and the consequent impact on project progress necessitates preemptive measures to manage risks. To that end, this study identified potential risks relevant to GHP implementation and determined their relative importance.

A two-phase Delphi proces and literature review were used to identify sixty-one potential risks that we grouped under seven categories, namely economic, political, land-use, technological, geographic, social, and environmental. Then, AHP was used to calculate the relative importance of risks that could threaten GHP implementation. Results reveal that while GHP implementation will probably encounter all the seven-risk categories examined in this study, the most important risks will be economic, political, and geographic, respectively.

Findings show that the relative importance of GHPR is not uniform across the five project nations. For instance, economic risks are found to be highly important in Cameroon, while geographic risks will be important to consider when implementing the GHP in Ethiopia.

Besides achieving the research objective, the outcomes of this study serve four other purposes. These are: to provide decision support and capacitate policy makers, project designers, financiers, road building-contractors and freight operators to plan for GHP while considering future uncertainty of contextual dynamics; to acknowledge that the limited fiscal space among GPN hinders the simultaneous control of the multiple GHPR; to justify the optimal deployment of scarce resources towards managing the most important GHPR; and to provide a basis for making trade-offs among project risks.

The GHPR factors demonstrate broadened local expert expectations of the GHP beyond the generic issues related to cost and time, minimization of dust, and noise and vibrations. Results indicate that experts are highly interested in incorporating sustainability measures into the planning and development of GHP projects. They also express optimism about achieving sustainable outcomes throughout the entire life-cycle of these projects. This is illustrated by concerns raised regarding disrupting flora and fauna areas, segmenting existing settlements, causing livelihood displacement or loss of employment opportunities, altering the quality of water resources, and the possibility of the GHP being impacted by extreme climate.

Despite efforts to be comprehensive, the results are constrained by relying primarily on data obtained from government officials, researchers, and road construction engineers. Information from freight operators and insurance firms who provide risk coverage to such freight operators could provide additional insights. This is something that should be considered in future research. Another limitation arises from using online platforms to obtain input from informants. Actual field surveys and focused group interviews could increase the comprehensiveness of the study. Such approaches and other risks assessment approaches could also address issues that may arise due to the subjective nature of AHP and Delphi processes.

Among other suggestions for future research would be examining interdependencies between TTC risk factors. Despite the limitations, the research remains pertinent as it establishes a foundation for understanding crucial risks to implementing GHPs and illustrates how uncertainty surrounding contextual factors can impact project completion. Considering GHP’s deployment as a regional transport and spatial development policy tool, the study findings can be incorporated into GHP formulation as well as being used as a platform for future TTC investigations in Africa and beyond.