A corridor south: why the African Development Bank is looking at Tunisian logistics

Quiet conversations about linking Tunisian ports to Sahel markets could matter more than any single summit.

Among the less noticed threads of regional diplomacy is a growing interest in logistics, the unglamorous business of moving goods between North Africa and the markets to its south. Development financiers, the African Development Bank among them, have signalled appetite for corridors that connect Mediterranean ports to the interior.

For Tunisia the logic is straightforward. Its ports, its location and its engineering and services firms could serve as a gateway between Europe and a fast growing continental market, if the road, rail and customs links existed to carry the trade.

None of this is settled, and feasibility studies have a way of outliving the enthusiasm that commissioned them. But the direction is worth watching, because infrastructure that ties Tunisia to the continent would do more for its long term standing than another year of crisis management.