Early in the 1970s, Algeria, Mali, Niger and Tunisia joined later by Nigeria and Chad decided to construct a trans-Saharan road composed of a trans-African axis Algiers Lagos going through Niger and three branches linkingfrom N to S Tunisia from Ghardaia, Mali from Tamanrasset and Chad from Zender. A coordination Committee was set up in 1966. The project has two main objectives: to unlock the deprived Saharan areas in each country; and toimprove the trans-border road communications. The first objective of unlocking the deprived Saharan areas has been reached since 3.500 km of roads have been constructed even if 2088 km are still tracks. The commercial exchanges are on the contrary very modest. During the years, the Committee provided a good example of South-South cooperation. On one hand, the projectcould be designed and considered as a whole project in good coordination for a region gathering six countries. On the other hand, the mission of sharing experiences of the Committee reached results that exceeded the framework of the TSR project. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Samenvatting