A railway can carry a landlocked country’s trade to the coast in hours. It cannot make that coast its own.
Section
Economics
Mombasa Port and the inland chain: where corridor efficiency is won or lost
Mombasa’s throughput nearly tripled and dwell time fell sharply. Yet trucks still face seven to ten stops to Kampala – proof the corridor’s bottleneck moved inland, it did not disappear.
Kenya’s railway dream: national ambition meets the arithmetic of a loan
A modern railway was Kenya’s first since independence, a statement of arrival. It also became the country’s biggest debt, where the politics of ambition collides with the politics of repayment.
Zero-Tariff Access: Why Open Gates Do Not Yet Mean Full Shelves
China has dropped tariffs to zero on 100 percent of tariff lines for least-developed African states. The harder work – meeting export protocols – is only beginning.
Beyond Aid: China-Africa Trade Reads as Expansion, With a Balance Question
China-Africa trade hit a record US$295.6 billion in 2024 – a business story, not an aid story. The unresolved question is whether the expansion runs both ways.
Reading the Flow Data: China Is a Quarter of Africa’s Infrastructure Plan
Official flow data shows China financing roughly a quarter of Africa’s priority infrastructure. The harder finding is that money is not the binding constraint – project structuring is.
From Projects to a Market: China’s Africa Pivot Meets AfCFTA’s Bigger Test
China spent two decades building bilateral projects in Africa. AfCFTA asks a harder question – whether they add up to a single continental market or stay a collection of bilateral deals.
PIDA and the Belt and Road: China Funds the Corridors Africa Already Planned
Africa’s own infrastructure blueprint predates Chinese finance. The 2024 FOCAC summit promised 30 projects to advance it – the test is whether they follow the continent’s plan or Beijing’s map.
China and the African Union: A Dialogue Channel That Outpaces Its Receipts
The China-AU strategic dialogue promises co-ordinated development governance. Yet its clearest output to date is a single building, not a shared decision-making system.