The LAPSSET Corridor
LAPSSET is a port that works and a corridor that mostly does not exist yet.
- 40
- projects on the corridor: 12 in service, 3 being built, 3 approved, 15 announced, 7 stalled
- USD 2.16 bn
- signed or disbursing: loans, grants, budget and equity with an agreement behind them
- USD 13 m
- approved but not yet signed
- USD 532 m
- pledged or announced for named projects; 15 more lines carry no amount
Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan launched it in March 2012 as a plan of about USD 25 bn: a port at Lamu, with highways, a railway, oil pipelines, airports and resort cities running north-west to Juba and north to Addis Ababa. So far it has produced three berths at Lamu, opened in 2021 and 2022 and busy only since 2025, much of their cargo diverted by the conflict in the Gulf, and two paved highways to the borders, Isiolo–Moyale and Lokichar–Nadapal, built with African Development Bank, EU and World Bank money. This register holds 40 of the corridor's parts: 12 in service, 3 being built, 3 approved, 15 only announced and 7 stalled.
USD 2.16 bn is signed or being paid out for those projects, less than a tenth of the USD 24.5 bn the corridor authority put on the plan in 2016, and most of it from Kenya's own budget, the African Development Bank and the World Bank. Kenya pays in shillings for the port and for the road from Lamu to Garissa, both built by China Communications Construction Company. USD 532 m more is promised, almost all of it a proposed Kenyan stake in a refinery.
The rest is on paper. The railway has no money for construction. The crude pipeline from the Turkana oilfields to Lamu was left out of the oil plan Parliament ratified in February 2026, which trucks the crude to Mombasa. On 1 October 2026 President Ruto said Kenya would build one with Aliko Dangote, whose USD 16 bn refinery had broken ground at Lamu the day before. In South Sudan the road from the border to Juba has stalled, and in January 2025 Kenya's cabinet approved dissolving the authority that coordinates the corridor.
Register compiled 12 Oct 2026 · 40 projects · 45 financing lines from 13 funders · 170 sources, each linked · roads and railways from OpenStreetMap, fetched 12 Oct 2026