For years it has been believed that countless ries needs access to the see in order for them to participate effectively in international trade. It is believed that transport costs would hinder countries to cost export to the markets. This idea was put in the forward because the assumption was that international market means western markets.
Regional markets were not considered to be potential markets for regional trade. All governments in Africa bought into this misnomer. They followed suit of the plan of the colonists to link Africa to Europe through railway lines and roads lead to the coast. Even a country with 5 countries to the cost would still strive to access coast without ever targeting to trade with the same countries. The countries would only roads linking to the coast but otherwise they were not interconnected on all the geographical coonners
