Integration of the Extended Gateway Concept in Supply Chain Disruptions Management in East Africa-Conceptual Paper
In the recent past, emerging regions of the world have become significant contributorsin powering growth of the global economy. The regions have experienced increase in foreign direct investment, rise in volumes of exports and imports, and an increase in shipping lines towards such regions. Africa in this trend has not been left behind with the IMF reporting that six out of ten fastest growing economies in the world are found in Africa. Specifically, East Africa is one of the regions that have experienced this positive trend relating to moreintegration of the economies, high average GDP growth, and tremendous increase in international freight destined for overseas and inlandthrough the ports of Mombasa and Dares Salaam. The rise in freightvolume however, has resulted into port terminal capacity and productivity challenges, congestion along transport corridors, damage of highways, traffic jam in port cities and environmental pollution hence making the nature of growth and development expensive and unsustainable. This conceptual paper therefore tries topropose the adoption of the ‘extended gateway concept ‘to be integrated into East Africa’s transportation -logistics systemin order to manage and prevent supply chain related disruptions related to time,costs,reliability and safety .The paper presents a theoretical meaning of the concept, discusses the logistical challenges of East Africa from a shipping perspective, and proposes a ‘Three tier’ Extended gateway model for the region based on the development of inland intermodal terminals or dry ports to achieve a modern, economically and environmentally sustainable fright transportation system.