The governments of the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic have secured World Bank financing for the Regional Project for the Improvement of Road and River Transport Corridors in Central Africa (PRACAC). This project aims to improve transport and trade efficiency; climate resilience of infrastructure and socio-economic inclusion along road and river corridors between the two countries; including the Pointe-Noire-Brazzaville-Bangui-N'Djamena corridor. The Congo-Oubangui River Corridor facilitates 70% of intra-regional trade and plays an important role in opening markets by ensuring the livelihood of small entrepreneurs and traders who live and operate along the river. The waterway; the channel; as well as the danger points and obstacles are not always maintained and marked. This leads to regular accidents with a high mortality rate. In the face of the major challenges imposed by climate change on the maintenance of the navigability of waterways (seasonal variations in water levels; prolonged periods of drought; and extreme weather events; etc.); there is a need to explore and implement sustainable and innovative management practices. These practices must incorporate climate-smart approaches to the maintenance; buoyage and dredging of waterways. In addition; operators must adapt to an ever more precise knowledge of environmental impacts with the evolution of regulations.On July 10th; 2024; the Project team was awarded a grant from the Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) Partnership to help enhance transport and trade efficiency in a more sustainable; inclusive; and climate-resilient manner by supporting analytical work to: (i) Deepen the understanding of the service economy and trade environment in the sub-region; especially along the waterways¡¯ corridor dominated by small-scale traders and informality; (ii) Implement best practices that will enhance domestic and intraregional trade; support community-led activities with a focus on women traders who are very active in the region; maximize financing for development; and enable the long-term and climate-resilient maintenance of the corridor infrastructure financed under the Project; (iii) Support ongoing and future WB engagement; projects; and investments along the corridor; and (iv) Tackle regional challenges faced by CAR and ROC in financing and maintaining transport infrastructure in a climate-resilient and sustainable manner; fostering local and sub-regional trade; and creating socio-economic opportunities for underrepresented communities. To add value to the existing project; the Project team seeks to use part of this grant to finance a study to identify and implement innovative international practices to improve climate resilience and the efficiency of river infrastructure. This study will be carried out under sub-component 2.4 of the project "Technical assistance to improve climate resilience; navigability; road and inland waterway transport safety; port and river safety; and road and port asset management".