In its latest report, Transport Connectivity for Food Security in Africa: Strengthening Supply Chains, the World Bank highlights the challenges of transporting agricultural goods across the continent, emphasizing the critical role that port infrastructure plays in handling food products. Focus on the five key ports that are vital to food supply in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Port Sudan

Port Sudan, a Red Sea port, is the continent’s most critical hub for food distribution, with an annual throughput of 11.9 billion kilocalories (Kcal). The port handles close to 90% of Sudan’s international trade and plays a central role in grain logistics, featuring a dedicated berth for cereals. Its public and private storage facilities offer over 500,000 tonnes in silo capacity. These assets support handling imported wheat and exported sorghum, complemented by bagging facilities that repackage bulk goods into standardized sacks for inland distribution via road and rail links. Port Sudan is also vital to regional integration, providing landlocked nations like the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Chad with a gateway to the sea.

Cities in eastern Chad, including Abéché, Biltine, and Goz-Beïda, heavily rely on food and essential goods imported through Sudan. Road corridors link Port Sudan to eastern Chad via Darfur.

Mombasa

Mombasa, East Africa’s leading seaport, is the second busiest in Sub-Saharan Africa after Durban. It plays a key role in the food supply of Kenya, one of the largest grain-importing nations in the region. World Bank figures show the port can handle up to 414,300 tons of dry bulk cargo, with 258,500 tons specifically for cereals. It moves approximately 11.7 billion Kcal of food per year. Mombasa’s grain silos offer a total storage capacity of 245,000 tonnes. The port serves as a crucial transit point for cargo bound for Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Grain offloading has surged sixfold since 2000, from 400,000 tonnes to 2.7 million tonnes in 2019. Bagging systems and bulk-handling equipment by rail and road are also used for other key goods such as tea, Kenya’s main agricultural export, and imported palm oil destined for the broader East African market.

Cotonou

The port of Cotonou handles up to 2 million tons of cereals annually, moving an estimated 10.5 billion Kcal of food each year, according to the World Bank. It serves as Benin’s main gateway to global markets, supporting exports of cotton, cashew nuts, and oilseeds. Strategically, it is also a lifeline for landlocked countries like Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Designed for bulk cargo handling and conversion into packaged goods for easier distribution, Cotonou is a key conduit for essentials like rice, frozen fish, and poultry destined for Beninese and Nigerian markets.

Djibouti

Situated on the Red Sea, the port of Djibouti can process up to 8,500 tons of bulk cereals daily. According to the World Bank, it has eight silos with a capacity of 29,000 tons for wheat and 40,000 tons for fertilizers. As Ethiopia’s main access point to global trade, the port handles 70% of the country’s foreign commerce, supported by robust road and rail links. Djibouti enables Ethiopia to import staples like wheat, vegetable oil, rice, sugar, and powdered milk. It also serves as a channel for World Food Programme humanitarian shipments to Addis Ababa and interior regions. On the export side, it handles Ethiopian coffee, sesame, and legumes like red kidney beans and chickpeas. Roughly 9.6 billion Kcal pass through the port annually.

Abidjan

In West Africa, the port of Abidjan remains a linchpin in regional food logistics. Its cereal terminal can handle between 200,000 and 300,000 tons of wheat annually, with an operational capacity of nearly 3,000 tons per day. Equipped with six storage silos and bagging machinery for flour, fertilizer, and especially rice, Côte d’Ivoire ranks as Africa’s third-largest rice importer after Nigeria and Senegal.

Thanks to inland road and rail connectivity, the port supports trade flows to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. More broadly, Abidjan is the world’s second-largest cocoa export hub after San Pedro, and a major fishing port, processing over 600,000 tons of seafood annually, including about 250,000 tons of tuna. It also has a dedicated fruit terminal handling around 250,000 tons of produce per year, mainly bananas and mangoes. According to the World Bank, it moves 9.2 billion Kcal of food per year.

Written in French by Espoir Olodo,

Translated and Adapted into English by Mouka Mezonlin