Chome, Ngala. “Land, Livelihoods and Belonging: Negotiating Change and Anticipating LAPSSET in Kenya’s Lamu County.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 14, no. 2 (2020): 310–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1743068.

To attract investments in mineral extraction, physical infrastructure and agricultural commercialization over a vast swathe of Northern Kenya, national politicians and bureaucrats are casting the area as being both abundant with land and resources, and as, conversely, ‘backward’, ‘unexploited’ and ‘empty’. Drawing on evidence from Lamu County, and focusing on the planned Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor, this article contends that such high-modernist and ‘new frontier’ discourses are usually complicated by the realities on the ground. Based on common perceptions about land and ethnicity, and how these are intertwined with the politics of belonging and redistribution, these realities exemplify complex economies of anticipation – through which networks of patronage, alliance, and mobilization are being created or entrenched in advance of major investments. This article argues that it is these anticipations – more than official designs – that will determine the future direction of LAPSSET, especially in respect to who will get what, when and how, within its promised prosperous future.

Source: Article's abstract.

Terrefe, Biruk. “Urban Layers of Political Rupture: The ‘new’ Politics of Addis Ababa’s Megaprojects.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 14, no. 3 (2020): 375–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1774705.

From the Derg's restoration of Meskel Square for its military parades and Meles Zenawi's Light-Rail Transit (LRT) and condominium social housing projects to Abiy Ahmed's high-end luxury real estate and urban tourism schemes, mega projects have collapsed Ethiopia's political history into an urban bricolage of shifting ideologies and new priorities. At this critical juncture, where questions of political rupture and continuity become salient, this paper examines what we can learn about Ethiopia's political dynamics through its latest urban megaprojects. Drawing on 'LaGare' and 'Beautifying Sheger' as case studies, this article argues that there is a new urban aesthetic emerging in Addis Ababa targeting domestic elites, the Ethiopian diaspora and tourists. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Gulf-emulated luxury real estate projects and major riverside renewal schemes are intended to generate revenue through increased land values and urban tourism. At the same time, issues around inclusive consultation with local stakeholders, the lack of coordination with the relevant bureaucracies and the highly centralized decision-making process are reminiscent of the modus operandi of previous Ethiopian regimes. These urban megaprojects are useful analytical lenses to disentangle political rupture from operational continuity.

Source: Article's abstract

Akrofi, Mark McCarthy, and Sarpong Hammond Antwi. “COVID-19 Energy Sector Responses in Africa: A Review of Preliminary Government Interventions.” Energy Research & Social Science 68 (2020): 101681–101681. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101681.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed unprecedented shocks across all facets of society, from strained healthcare systems to the closure of schools and economies. The energy sector is of no exception, with several concerns being raised about the ramifications that will arise for the clean energy transition. The goal of the study is to review how governments in Africa have responded to this challenge in the energy sector. The authors used an internet search to gather information from government policy statements/briefs, and websites of international organizations such as the IMF,WHO, KPMG, and the World Bank. Their review showed that the majority of preliminary responses were short-term and include the provision of free electricity, waiver/suspension of bill payments, and VAT exemptions on electricity bills. These measures were more pronounced in sub-Sahara Africa while oil-rich countries of the North mostly have broad economic measures that target their oil and gas sectors. Economic stimulus packages prepared by most countries do not explicitly mention energy sector companies/institutions, especially the Renewable Energies (RE) sector. Only three countries (Nigeria, Kenya, and Burkina Faso) had specific interventions for renewables. Overall, interventions were mostly fiscal/financial and short-term, with medium to long term measures often broad without being specific to the energy sector. As governments take measures to bolster their economies, they must pay particular attention to the challenges posed by the pandemic in the energy sector and capitalize on the opportunities that it presents to drive the clean energy transition.

Source: Article's abstract

Makina, Daniel. Extending Financial Inclusion in Africa. London: Academic Press, 2019.

Extending Financial Inclusion in Africa unveils the genesis and transformation of Africa's financial sector and its ability to provide finance for all. Contributors of the Book traverse the whole spectrum of African financial systems, examining their depth and breadth and empirically evaluating their appropriateness and effectiveness to achieve inclusive financial services

Source: book description by publisher

Kimari, Wangui, and Henrik Ernstson. “Imperial Remains and Imperial Invitations: Centering Race within the Contemporary Large‐Scale Infrastructures of East Africa.” Antipode 52, no. 3 (2020): 825–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12623.

Authors combine infrastructure studies and black radical traditions to foreground how imperial remains deeply inform the logics that bring forth contemporary large‐scale infrastructures in Africa. The objective, prompted by the ongoing avid promotion of such architectures on the continent, is to contribute to an analysis that centres race in these projects. They argue that these initiatives have to be understood in relation to inherited material and discursive scaffoldings that remain from the colonial period, through what they refer to as imperial remains and imperial invitations. These remains and invitations demonstrate how recent mega infrastructures inhere, in their planning, financing and implementation, a colonial racialism, despite rhetorical claims to the opposite. Empirically, they draw principally on China built and financed infrastructure projects from Kenya, and theoretically upon black radical traditions to foreground a longer genealogy of black pathologizing and resistance to it on the continent.

Source: adapted from article's abstract.

Enns, Charis, and Brock Bersaglio. “On the Coloniality of ‘New’ Mega‐Infrastructure Projects in East Africa.” Antipode 52, no. 1 (2020): 101–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12582.

This article responds to a preference for short‐term history in research on the infrastructure turn by engaging with the longue durée of East Africa’s latest infrastructure scramble. It traces the history of LAPSSET in Kenya and the Central Corridor in Tanzania, revealing the coloniality of new and improved transport infrastructure along both corridors. This exercise demonstrates how the spatial visions and territorial plans of colonial administrators get built in to new infrastructure and materialise in ways that serve the interests of global capital rather than peasant and indigenous peoples being promised more modern, prosperous futures. The article concludes by suggesting that a focus on the longue durée also reveals uneven patterns of mobility and immobility set in motion during the colonial scramble for Africa and reinforced after independence. These “colonial moorings” are significant as they shape political reactions to new mega‐infrastructure projects today and constrain the emancipatory potential of infrastructure‐led development.

Source: Paper abstract.