Kenya to receive Ksh.408M grant for Mau Summit-Malaba Road upgrade feasibility study

A road project linking Kenya’s western corridor to the Port of Mombasa has received a major boost after the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) approved a USD 3.15 million (approx. Ksh.408 million) grant to prepare its upgrade.

The funds, endorsed during an MCDF Governing Committee meeting in Beijing on November 25, will finance a feasibility study for the proposed public-private partnership (PPP) upgrade of the 243-kilometre Mau Summit–Malaba road.

The project will be implemented by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), marking its first standalone investment in Kenya and its first attempt at structuring a PPP in Africa.

Stretching from Mau Summit - already benefiting from improved connectivity to Mombasa via Nairobi - to the Malaba border crossing, the road forms a critical artery for trade flowing to Uganda, eastern DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and northwestern Tanzania.

It is also part of the wider Trans-African Highway Network, making its performance essential to cross-border movement of goods.

“The feasibility study will assess the project’s technical viability, resilience to climate and engineering risks, environmental and social safeguards, and tolling affordability,” MCDF Senior Communications Officer David Hendrickson said in a statement.

“It will also foster a transparent, bankable PPP aligned with International Financial Institution standards and able to mobilize substantial private investment as well as prepare the project’s PPP structure, contract, and tendering documents.”

The study will build on a pre-feasibility assessment already underway and financed by AIIB, following a formal request from the Kenyan government to accelerate preparation of the Mau Summit–Malaba upgrade.

If successful, the project is expected to deliver safer and more efficient travel along the corridor, reducing accidents, easing congestion, cutting truck idling time and emissions, and lowering the cost and duration of transport between Kenya’s interior trade hubs and the Port of Mombasa.