Funded by the UK Research Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund the Development Corridors Partnership began in October 2017 and will end in December 2021. The Partnership will build capacity to address concerns about development corridors by encouraging scientific collaboration and stakeholder engagement in key issues of corridor planning and management. This will include applying the best tools and analyses (and developing new ones if necessary), and communicating recommendations to all stakeholders more effectively.
Partners from Tanzania, Kenya, China and the UK are coming together to build capacity so development corridor decision-making can be based on sound scientific evidence and effective use of planning tools and procedures
A development corridor is a geographical area identified as a priority for investment to catalyse economic growth and development. This is usually through the creation of infrastructure such as railways or pipelines.
ADDRESSING FAILURES
The Development Corridors Partnership, builds on the earlier work of the Integrated Resources Corridor Initiative (IRCI) a partnership between the World Bank, UK DFID and WWF. The IRCI identified several key failings in the way that many corridors have been developed. These included a lack of a ‘sustainability vision’, as well as, a failure to:
- undertake adequate inter-disciplinary research,
- engage with interested and affected communities and
- communicate recommendations (when research was done) to influence Corridor decision makers.