**Improving law and order along the river Congo could go a long way towards unlocking the potential of that natural economic artery.** This formerly lively trade route is now beset by all sorts of “services” and agencies claiming authority over the river and extracting taxes from passing traders and passengers. This not only has a financial cost for shipowners, it can also imply significant delays and add to the general sense of insecurity that still prevails.

# _Infrastructure_

**Infrastructure improvements are needed throughout the DRC, but the payoff to such investments could be particularly high in the Lower Congo region, where population density is high and distances are comparatively short** (see World Bank, 2010a). We have identified the Matadi-Kinshasa and Pointe Noire-Brazzaville corridors not only as the gateways to the world for the two capital cities but also as corridors that could be in competition and thereby reduce costs and barriers along those corridors. In addition, they could function as mutual “fall-back options” for the case of interruptions to one of those routes. Hence, each country’s maintenance of its access route to the ocean generates external benefits to the other country. Work on the Pointe Noire-Brazzaville road is already underway, and upgrades to the rail link are in the pipeline. The Matadi-Kinshasa road is in passable condition, but does not seem to offer the capacity for significant increases in trade volumes. An upgrade of the Matadi-Kinshasa rail link could therefore pay rich economic dividends. Such an investment should be coupled with organizational reform of ONATRA, either in the form of privatization or by issuing concessions for other operators to use the railway tracks.

**Dredging and signposting along the river and in the Pool area are badly needed.** In conjunction with the security and administrative improvements needed for a facilitation of upriver trade, such physical improvements could be a relatively low-cost means of opening up the vast interior hinterland to international trade. The current situation is so severe that economic operators in Kisangani have turned to supply routes through the port of Mombasa.

**Infrastructure investments will have to be complemented by sustainable mechanisms for maintenance.** Currently, physical capital is largely left to depreciate without any local investment in maintenance or replacement. While it is understandable that much of the region’s initial infrastructure investments are foreign funded, the maintenance of new and existing physical capital will have to be locally funded to be sustainable in the long term. We have experienced several instances of foreign-donated capital goods (especially ferries) that undoubtedly generate significant economic rents but are nonetheless allowed to depreciate while the use of the profits generated cannot be verified.

**It is important that projects to facilitate trade are made compatible with the incentives of local actors to serve the interests of the many rather than those of the few** . As long as foreignfinanced transport capital is captured for rent extraction by local elites while being left to degrade, such investments will not yield sustainable gains - and they may even add to local distributive tensions. As a general rule, this aim is probably better served with regulatory and administrative interventions aimed at freeing local initiative and competitive forces rather than with large foreignfinanced and foreign-planned capital projects.

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