一艘188座的客运渡轮在2024年4月从吉布提被陆路拖运到2025年8月的塔纳湖，但自2023年以来湖区周边的叛乱使座位一直空着。

内河水运被估计比公路或铁路的大宗运输便宜30%–60%，然而约80%的非洲货运走公路，而美洲为45%、欧洲为25%。因此，非洲的运输成本最高可达美洲的五倍，其贸易中只有16%是区域内贸易，而亚洲为58%、欧洲为67%。

投资不足和地理障碍使水路被低度使用：一个尼日利亚的疏浚与运河网络本可以覆盖36个州中的28个，五大湖连接十个国家、拥有5.2亿人口，而尼罗河承载埃及国内贸易不足1%，同时埃及自2014年以来修建了超过6,300公里的公路。新的项目包括非洲开发银行的120亿美元从维多利亚湖到地中海的走廊，以及在一条通往基苏木的管道之后乌干达经由维多利亚湖进口燃料，但冲突与资金仍是约束。

A 188-seat passenger ferry was hauled overland from Djibouti in April 2024 to Lake Tana in August 2025, but an insurgency around the lake since 2023 has left the seats empty.

Inland waterway transport is estimated to cost 30%–60% less than bulk road or rail, yet about 80% of African freight moves by road, versus 45% in America and 25% in Europe. As a result, Africa’s transport costs can be up to five times America’s, and only 16% of its trade is intra-regional, compared with 58% in Asia and 67% in Europe.

Underinvestment and geographic barriers keep waterways underused: a Nigerian dredging-and-canal network could span 28 of 36 states, the Great Lakes link ten countries with 520m people, and the Nile carries under 1% of Egypt’s internal trade while Egypt built over 6,300km of roads since 2014. New projects include an African Development Bank $12bn Lake Victoria–to–Mediterranean corridor and Uganda’s fuel imports via Lake Victoria after a pipeline to Kisumu, but conflict and finance remain constraints.

Source: The nautical theory of African development

Subtitle: With more ships plying its rivers and lakes, the continent could be much richer

Dateline: 12月 30, 2025 05:49 上午 | Addis Ababa