Africa’s Railway Renaissance

Book excerpt: This book investigates the history, political economy and spatiality of Chinese railway projects in Africa. It examines the financial governance of Sino-African railway projects, their socio-cultural, political and economic effects as well as the regional dimension of Africa’s new railway architecture and its function within China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Leading and emerging scholars from Africa, China, Europe and the Americas offer interpretations through politicoeconomic, historical, geographical and post-colonial conceptual lenses. Case studies on projects in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia offer an empirically rich and cross-disciplinary picture of Sino-African railway developments at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Regional analyses on West and East Africa expose persistent obstacles to the regional integration of Africa’s railways. The volume outlines opportunities and challenges related to Africa’s railway renaissance in the post-COVID-19 global political economy and will be of great interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in Africa-China relations and their developmental effects or in the politics of infrastructure, spatial governance and the political economy of transport.