The Africa integrated High Speed Railway Network (AIHSRN) is one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063. Its vision is to interconnect African countries with passenger “high speed” railway network connectivity.
However, in view of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), the need to broaden the vision to support this economic and trade “grand design” is evident and opportunistic. Therefore, the proposed integrated continental railway network master plans presented below integrate different speeds to enable the network to be of “mixed-use” (i.e. passenger and freight). It combines passenger train-only high speed links (up to 320 km/h) like those recently built in Morocco, semi high speed (up to 120km/h for freight and 240 km/h for passenger) links for both passenger and freight trains, and conventional rail links (up to 120 km/h).
To achieve the aspiration of an integrated Africa, politically united, and based on the ideals of Pan-Africanism (i.e. Aspiration-2) and trading amongst African countries and with the rest of the world, the two sequential Master Plans (i.e. Master Plans 2033 and 2043) below are recommended by the African Union to be implemented.
- MASTER PLAN 2033 aims to meet the first three objectives:
1. Connect landlocked countries to sea ports
2. Provide interconnections between different regions/parts of African continent
3. Establish “Trans-Africa beltways”, similar to Trans African Highways (TAH). - MASTER PLAN 2043 aims to meet the fourth objective, which is to connect all political and economic capitals.
The detailed Scoping Study (DSS) of Vision 2063 Africa Integrated High Speed Railway Network and Master Plan are available for download below.
File | Action |
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Executive Summary - English | Download |
Final Report - Arabic | Download |
Final Report - English | Download |
Final Report - French | Download |
Final Report - Portuguese | Download |