The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has agreed to provide $200 million in financing to help open a logistics corridor linking Ghana’s Volta Lake to northern Ghana, Burkina Faso and other Sahelian countries, President John Dramani Mahama has said.
Mahama made the disclosure on Monday, September 21, at the closing of the Accra Reset high-level event in New York, held on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly.
He said IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop gave him the news shortly before he addressed the closing session of the event.
Diop had earlier explained during a panel discussion that the proposed corridor followed discussions with Mahama about improving Ghana’s logistics infrastructure to support more intra-African trade.
According to Diop, Ghana’s railway line currently stops about seven kilometres short of the shore of the Volta River. Completing that section would allow goods carried by rail to reach the river and continue north by water.
Diop said Mahama had told him that private investors were interested in developing the missing link. He subsequently met one of the investors, who is an IFC client, to discuss what would be needed to make the project work.
The investor identified the remaining railway connection, electricity infrastructure at the lakeshore, river dredging and the deployment of three boats as key requirements. The aim would be to move goods northwards and eventually connect Ghana with Burkina Faso and other Sahelian markets.
Diop also said the IFC was working with the investor on a $100 million project, while another $50 million project was about to be signed.
The remarks on the two projects came as Diop described the wider infrastructure requirements for establishing the logistics route. They were not presented as additional amounts on top of the $200 million corridor financing announced by Mahama.
The proposed corridor would combine rail and inland water transport to move cargo from Ghana towards northern markets and landlocked countries further north.
The announcement comes as Ghana seeks to improve transport connections that can support trade with other African economies, particularly countries without direct access to the coast.
At the same Accra Reset session, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretary-General Wamkele Mene said intra-African trade accounts for between 15% and 20% of Africa’s total trade, although official figures do not capture significant volumes of informal cross-border trade.
Mene said recorded intra-African trade reached about $220 billion in 2024, with manufactured and value-added goods accounting for a sizeable share.
The proposed logistics corridor would add another transport link between Ghana’s southern network, the Volta Lake and markets in northern Ghana and the Sahel.
