Person: Aritua, Bernard
Global Practice on Transport, The World Bank
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Transport logistics, Infrastructure finance
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Global Practice on Transport, The World Bank
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Last updated: June 12, 2025
Biography
Bernard Aritua is as a Senior Infrastructure and Logistics Specialist in the World Bank Group. He is responsible for Transport Sector coordination in China, Central Asia and Mongolia.
He has worked in the field of infrastructure investment and economic policy for more than 20 years. During this time, he has led and provided technical input on policy analysis, regulation, institutional reform, and technical design of major highways; railways; inland waterways; freight logistics; and multi-modal transport.
Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked in both the private and public sector in United Kingdom, Germany, Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East, and more recently in India and China. He is a Chartered Engineer with a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
7 results
Publication Search Results
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Publication Connecting for Growth: South Sudan Transport Infrastructure and Logistics Diagnostics(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-12) Aritua, Bernard; Debela, Getachew Yilma; Muzira, StephenThe current state of the transport sector in South Sudan is dire. For example, it takes between two to four days to travel from Juba to Wau in South Sudan, a distance of approximately 650 km. In the rainy season, this journey can take over a week, if at all. A trip from Budapest to Munich, which is the same distance, takes seven hours. This is just one instance that captures the current transport conditions in South Sudan. There is urgent need for a robust transport system, with requisite institutional governance, financing, due attention to maintenance and climate resilience to bring opportunity and hope back to the people of South Sudan. The report analyzes South Sudan’s transport infrastructure, connectivity needs, and investment priorities against the background of the country’s unique geography and recent instability - and its funding and financing constraints. It argues that a “build and they will come” approach will not work. Instead, to materially reduce logistics costs, and meaningfully support economic growth ambitions, South Sudan needs to be selective and focused in making infrastructure investments. The analysis, therefore, focused principally on key agriculture value chains and incorporating the export of refined oil. The assessment of gaps in infrastructure, institutions, policy, and regulations is from the perspective of developing each of these value chains.Publication South Africa Policy Package, Priority 2: Delivering Quality and Climate-Friendly Infrastructure(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-25) Aritua, Bernard; Aldayarov, Mirlan; Baez, Javier; Morisset, JacquesThe new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive transformation process, even if there is not yet an agreement on which economic reforms to implement. Such alignment was key behind the successful economic transformation of China in the early 1980s, Vietnam in the late 1980s and 1990s, Poland in the 2010s, and India in the early 2020s. Those successes were anchored on a development bargain, whereby the country’s elites shifted from protecting their own positions to gambling on a growth-based future. This report offers pragmatic policy options, tailored for South African policymakers who want to obtain short-term results, while creating momentum for structural reforms, resume growth, and improve the overall welfare of their citizens, especially the most disadvantaged.Publication Developing China’s Ports: How the Gateways to Economic Prosperity Were Revived(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-05-17) Chiu, Hei; Aritua, Bernard; Cheng, Lu; Farrell, Sheila; de Langen, PeterMany countries in Africa and Asia have coastlines that present opportunities for them to become gateways for trade between the hinterlands and global trading routes. However, policy makers struggle to translate this potential into engines of economic development and social transformation. In the past 40 years, China has taken advantage of its strategic geographical location and its status as one of the world’s top manufacturing regions. From a very low position on almost all metrics, today China has become home to more than half of the world’s top 50 ports. The rapid development of China’s ports was critical for the country’s remarkable economic growth. What China achieved can be informative; how and why China revived and modernized its port sector is especially relevant and provides valuable lessons for other countries. This book explores the transformation of China’s port sector through four topics and four periods, beginning with China’s major economic reforms that started in 1978. The first topic addresses the links between China’s macroeconomic and regional development strategies and development of the port sector. During this period—through about 1991—China began decentralizing port management to facilitate development of special economic zones. The second topic—during the period 1992 through about 2001—is more specific about the ports and analyzes changes in port governance, including the way in which essential investments were determined and financed. The third topic examines the relationship of ports to the cities where they are located and to the hinterlands on which they depend—coinciding with the period 2002–11. Domestic and international investment resulted in many new export-oriented processing factories during this period. The accompanying boost in trade required further expansion of port capacity. The fourth topic addresses how—from 2011 onward—human resource and innovation policies in the port sector have responded to changing demands as the country looks to become a less resource-dependent and more regionally balanced economy.Publication Blue Routes for a New Era: Developing Inland Waterways Transportation in China(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-09-16) Cheng, Lu; Aritua, Bernard; van Liere, Richard; de Leijer, HarrieMost policy makers readily acknowledge the economic, environmental, and social benefits of moving freight and passengers by waterways. However, why do many countries struggle to develop and revive their inland waterways transportation (IWT)? One reason is because of the dearth of successful examples of IWT revival. Aside from the United States and Europe, which have been relatively successful, the experience of many emerging countries has been a tale of intensive use followed by total collapse of the IWT sector. However, the combination of societal, economic, and environmental imperatives is motivating reassessment, as countries look to develop sustainable transport systems and to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. China’s experience has similarities to the experience of many countries and offers valuable lessons. This report is the result of an in-depth retrospective study of IWT in China and fills a gap in global knowledge. From an IWT system that carried less than 150 million tons in 1978, IWT in China carried 3.74 billion tons of cargo in 2018—six times more than either the European Union or the United States. China now has the busiest IWT system in the world. China’s leadership in IWT development started with years of investment in infrastructure that transformed lowgrade waterways, allowing larger vessels to use the waterways, which resulted in higher transport efficiency and lower cost. China also invested in development of skills and technical know-how. To date there are 127,000 km of inland waterways in China that have high-quality navigability and a good safety record. During the period of rapid economic development, China also adopted or developed internationally recognized technical innovations for river classification, vessel replacement, navigation technology, and environmental protection. What China achieved is informative. In particular, how and why China improved IWT provides valuable lessons for other countries.Publication The Rail Freight Challenge for Emerging Economies: How to Regain Modal Share(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019) Aritua, BernardMoving more freight by rail and waterways would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, truck-induced congestion, and noise pollution and contribute to the integrated logistics that are now a hallmark of global supply chains. The timing for the shift is right, because many emerging economies are making significant investments in railways and shippers are responding to public sentiment to reduce the negative impacts of road-related logistics. In the past, most railway organizations adopted a “build and they shall come” approach, modeled on the proposition that lower rail transportation costs would inevitably lead to modal shift. That approach is no longer viable. Successful railways now focus on understanding the logistics of targeted freight and positioning rail transport services as part of an overall logistics system aimed at meeting customers’ needs. By responding to new trends in logistics and partnering with road haulers, port operators, forwarders, intermodal terminal operators, and third-party logistics companies to provide the seamless service delivery required by changing supply chains, rail freight organizations in Europe and North America have regained modal share or reversed a trend of falling shares. Emerging economies can learn from their experience. The Rail Freight Challenge for Emerging Economies presents examples and lessons of good (and not-so-good) practice. It summarizes what successful rail freight organizations have done to increase market share and provides options for policy makers. The report is intended not to prescribe solutions but to inform decisions and broaden the discussion of options open to policy makers and senior officials in rail organizations in their country contexts.Publication Unlocking India's Logistics Potential: The Value of Disaggregated Macroscopic Freight Flow Analysis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02) Havenga, Jan; Aritua, Bernard; Simpson, Zane; Chiew, Esther Woon LynIndia is one of the fastest growing major economies. However, at 14 percent of gross domestic product, its logistics costs are high relative to the 8 to 10 percent that is typical of most advanced economies. High logistics costs and poor logistics performance impact the competitiveness of the economy on multiple levels: (1) firms deliver less competitive goods and services; (2) consumers pay more than peers for goods; and (3) the cost of achieving improvements in gross domestic product is excessive. The development of a national transport and logistics network to facilitate competitiveness and sustainable development and uplift rural regions will play an increasingly important role in shaping spatial organization in emerging economies. An element that is absent, yet critically important for national logistics issues in emerging economies, is sufficiently detailed freight-flow analysis to facilitate targeted infrastructure investments and enable transformational change to improve national logistics performance. This paper presents the results of a disaggregated macroscopic freight demand analysis developed for India through a hybrid approach, calibrating the modeled input-output matrix and resulting freight flows with data where available. Data was obtained from multiple sources, such as agricultural statistics, national enterprise surveys, a financial performance database of Indian companies, population statistics, and transportation statistics from rail, inland waterways transport, highways, and ports. The model provides evidence for decision making on several levels. Aggregating freight flows enables planners to identify gaps in critical infrastructure and logistics chains. Disaggregated flows support decisions on the location of logistics clusters, maximizing the potential of multimodal transport systems, and designing the distribution and storage networks that underpin the economy.Publication Unlocking the Potential of Freight Logistics in India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-12) Aritua, BernardNew, comprehensive analysis of data on the current routing of goods in India have positioned the country to break through its freight transport gridlocks and logistics inefficiencies. With a growth rate of more than 7 percent since 2014, India is the fastest growing major economy in the world. But as a share of its GDP, its logistics costs for moving freight are as high as 14 percentpercent of GDP, markedly more than the 8–10 percent for most advanced economies. The gap arises from excess costs generated by inefficiencies in the transport system, greater costs of storage and inventory and procedural delays. Closing that gap would give a major boost to India’s growth prospects. Studies of logistics improvements in advanced economies have shown that, with sufficiently detailed data on freight flows, targeted interventions in specific corridors andsubsectors can enable transformational changes in freight logistics performance. Researchersand logistics experts from the World Bank and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University have assembled and modeled such data for India, identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for morestrategic investment and collocation of activities to achieve production synergies and lower thecosts of logistics and trade.