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Infrastructure development, central to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is crucial for facilitating structural transformation. However, numerous critics contend that the Initiative serves as a tool for China to engage in debt-trap diplomacy, which fails to deliver actual development in Africa. Therefore, assessing whether BRI projects will facilitate the necessary structural transformation in these countries requires meticulous analysis. Given the extended project cycle typical of infrastructure development, evaluating the overall socioeconomic impacts of the BRI is challenging. Nonetheless, these projects are likely to be implemented as part of the expansion of China's existing model for overseas infrastructure projects. This model is characterized by a reliance on concessional loans and credit facilities for financing, and state-owned enterprises as contractors. Contrary to the debt-trap diplomacy narrative, our findings, based on panel data and staggered difference-in-differences analysis, indicate that Chinese projects have positively impacted multiple aspects of Africa's structural transformation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent years have witnessed a growing interest among academics and policymakers in understanding the mechaninsms through which Chinese outward direct investment (OFDI) impact economic growth in Africa. Method: This study utilzes a dataset spanning 41 African countries from 2005 to 2020,employing panel‐corrected standard error (PCSE) and quantile regression. Objective: This study explore the mechanisms through which Chinese OFDI stock contributes to economic growth in Africa,with a particular focus on financial development and transport infrastructure. Results: The results indicate a significant and positive impact of the interaction between Chinese OFDI stock and both financial development and transport infrastructure on economic growth. The subregional analysis reveals varying correlations across regions, while the quantile regression analysis demonstrates a stronger effect on economic growth as we move to higher quantiles. Conclusion: The study underscores the importance of enhancing infrastructure and financial sector development to attract more Chinese OFDI and maximize its positive impact of economic growth in African nations. Hence, we recommend that African countries improve the infrastructure and financial sector of their country to attract more chinese OFDI and also enhance its effectiveness on their economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Across Africa, cities have become fodder for grand-scale foreign investments and redevelopment projects signifying a distinct phenomenon synonymous with a new kind of urbanism. This paper offers a critical commentary on the proliferation of new infrastructure plans tailored as policy, technological fixes and solutions to urbanisation challenges, both real and perceived. We stir a conversation around the notion of 'plug-in urbanism': first, as an entry point for the study of a model of city building that is exceedingly determined by reflex prioritisation of assumedly universal and transferable corporate-driven policy agendas; secondly, as a critique of unidirectional, homogenising and determinist technological ideas and infrastructures; and thirdly, as a recourse to inclusive and holistic planning. We present the case of the Nairobi Expressway, a recently launched two- to four-lane 27 km viaduct, and the largest in Africa, as an example of a 'plug-in' infrastructure project: i.e. pre-packaged state-of-the-art development installation that comes complete and tailored as a magic bullet and obvious solution to identified mobility and transport challenges in Nairobi city. We demonstrate how in its parodic guise, the expressway highlights a project that is designed and financed by foreign authorities and sustained in line with foreign standard ideologies of what a world-class city should look like, yet in reality only leads to piecemeal and incomplete growth and development. Drawing from a standpoint of multiple urbanisms, we argue for more inclusive urban futures and visions that are responsive to diverse, popular and heterogeneous articulations of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the determinants of the informal economy is a crucial issue in economic development due to its far-reaching effects on development efforts. Previous studies focused exclusively on factors that can potentially reduce the relative size of the shadow economy. However, these attempts have not enjoyed much success to date in Africa, where informality has continued to thrive. We contend that realistic medium-term goals, as opposed to obligatory formalisation, could increase the output of informal businesses by providing enough infrastructure and a welcoming business climate, which would at the same time foster formalisation. Using OLS, FE and system GMM with data on 42 African countries covering 2003–2018, we find that infrastructure development reduces the relative size of the shadow economy in African countries. Our results remained consistent when we controlled for the effects of other determinants of the informal economy, employed other estimators, and used an alternative measure of the informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of infrastructural development on bilateral trade flows using a panel of 51 African countries from 2003 to 2015. An infrastructure‐augmented gravity model was estimated with different indicators of infrastructural development. Three aggregate indicators were computed namely: (i) a soft infrastructure index, (ii) a hard infrastructure measure, and (iii) an effective infrastructure index combining both soft and hard infrastructure components. The soft and hard infrastructure indices were constructed using the principal component analysis. Disaggregated hard infrastructural development indices for transport, information and communication technologies (ICT), and electricity were also used to assess their differential effects on intra‐African trade. By adopting the Pseudo Poisson Maximum Likelihood estimator with High Dimension Fixed Effects, the results confirm that both hard and soft infrastructures matter for trade in Africa. A disaggregation of the hard infrastructure index reveals that the electricity composite index has a greater impact on trade flows relative to transport and ICT infrastructures. Importantly, there is evidence that soft infrastructure matters most and complements hard infrastructure in the region. Targeted policies and resources should be channelled towards improving energy infrastructure and soft infrastructure in terms of streamlining trading rules and procedures to better propel and maximise the benefits of intra‐African trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African countries face an economic transformation gap. Given the large and growing Chinese presence on the African continent, a fundamental question is whether Chinese firms contribute to, or hinder, economic transformation in Africa. This article conducts a scoping review of over one hundred sources, examining the pathways through which Chinese firms can affect economic transformation. On balance, the literature points to a positive role of Chinese firms. Africa–China trade leads to mixed results, while Chinese investment and infrastructure construction are found to contribute positively to transformation. Chinese firms are also found to support capacity building, spillovers and innovation in African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to test the impact of China's infrastructure investment on economic growth in selected African states. Many comparative studies have shown the positive role that infrastructural loans plays in supporting economic growth. However, for Africa, the role of China's infrastructure projects has mixed views with regards to its contribution to growth and development. A survey of the literature showed that the central question about Chinese infrastructural loans is whether the infrastructural projects are beneficial or detrimental to Africa. Currently, there is no settled opinion as to whether (or not) Africa is benefiting from the Chinese economic relations. This study was quantitative, and we used panel data to achieve our objectives. The study employed annual panel data for 15 African countries covering the period of 2000–2017. The Pooled Mean Group, Mean Group, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares panel techniques were used for estimation purposes. The main conclusion from the quantitative analysis of China's infrastructural loans in Africa is that China's efforts in developing infrastructure are translating into economic growth. This study provides evidence that China's engagement in Africa could be beneficial, given the positive relationship between loans and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a structural reading of the complexities of region-centric infrastructure drives, African regionalism and the role of China. Four structural layers underlying China's engagement in the region are presented: the global infrastructure race; Pan-African continental connectivity; the intra-regional infrastructure race; and bilateral funding of regional infrastructure projects. The article finds that the global infrastructure race catalyses regionalism in Africa, offering agency of choice to East African Community (EAC) member states to select development partners interested in implementing region-centric infrastructure projects. While the ideological coherence between China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Pan-African continental connectivity has advanced the idea of African regionalism, regionalism also appears to have been slowed by a Chinese-induced intra-regional infrastructure race and China's bilateral approach with EAC member states. For regionalism to be successful, member states need to position themselves strategically in engaging China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are cooperative arrangements between governments and multinational corporations (MNCs) that are created to finance, construct and manage infrastructure projects. PPPs are a means for governments to gain much-needed private sector investment and expertise for economic development. Historically, Africa's involvement in PPPs has been limited relative to other continents. However, African governments, which are strapped for resources like other public entities, now have a greater need for infrastructure development to support the continent's population growth and demand for its commodities from emerging countries. Based on these conditions, PPPs will grow in importance in Africa. The purpose of this Insights Article is to discuss the past and current state of PPPs in Africa and the existing challenges of PPPs on the continent. We also discuss the opportunities that PPPs present to researchers who wish to contribute to the development of PPPs as an area of management inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the variety of finance sources to African countries, including aid flows, remittances, development finance, private equity and bonds and foreign direct investment. In order to address the poverty challenge, estimated at about $66 billion annually, these finances must be applied appropriately in various economic sectors, in particular the infrastructure sectors. These include both physical assets (transport, energy, water and sanitation and information and communications) and social services (hospitals and clinics, education and low-income housing). Governments are ultimately responsible for ensuring access to infrastructure for their citizens. However, developing-country governments are unable to address the infrastructure backlogs, let alone develop new assets, especially in the least developed countries in Africa. Governments rely on alliances with international partners, development finance institutions and, importantly, the private sector. However, the rules of engagement with the private sector need to be redefined, with proper emphasis on bringing affordable yet quality access to poorer communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining whether power outages have significant fertility effects is an important policy question in developing countries, where blackouts are common and modern forms of family planning are scarce. Using birth records from Zanzibar, this study shows that a month-long blackout in 2008 caused a significant increase in the number of births 8 to 10 months later. The increase was similar across villages that had electricity, regardless of the level of electrification; villages with no electricity connections saw no changes in birth numbers. The large fertility increase in communities with very low levels of electricity suggests that the outage affected the fertility of households not connected to the grid through some spillover effect. Whether the baby boom is likely to translate to a permanent increase in the population remains unclear, but this article highlights an important hidden consequence of power instability in developing countries. It also suggests that electricity imposes significant externality effects on rural populations that have little exposure to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]