Synthesis: Understanding growth corridors between vision and reality
Across the African continent, during the last two decades growth corridors have been promoted as more than just transportation routes, as they increasingly include broader development goals such as poverty reduction and gender equality. Given the ambitious goals to provide better rural futures, it does not come as a surprise that these mega-projects often fall short of actually implementing their plans as already analysed in Mold (2012). However, interpreting the gap between vision and reality solely as ‘corridor failure’ does not sufficiently regard the political nature of growth corridors as per their design. Rather than asking what intended and what unintended effects corridors produce, the questions of where and for whom different effects occur seems much more insightful. By emphasizing multiple motives and future visions, it becomes evident that what might be intended somewhere and among some actors can indeed be unintended elsewhere and by other actors Even if the transferability of the results based on two case studies is limited and shows a need for future research, the two case studies of the WBNLDC and the SAGCOT, help to better understand the ‘vision-reality gap’ of contemporary corridors.
First, there are apparent differences between the envisioning and outcomes of both corridors. While international investors and donors initiated SAGCOT together with the Tanzanian government, the WBNLDC is a product of Namibian actors, influenced by the attempt to further integrate SADC and increase connectivity and trade among the neighbouring countries. The WBNLDC at the time of planning was mostly logistics-oriented and included rather hard infrastructural measures. These measures are accessible to related industries and sectors and thus benefit economic development in unforeseen ways, as the tourism case has shown. The SAGCOT, to the contrary, was solely agriculture-oriented and included rather soft and often selective measures. Regional development outcomes were therefore mostly accessible and beneficial for large, industrialized agricultural businesses and international lead firms, such as farmland investors or input suppliers. The initially neoliberal approach underpinning SAGCOT’s design changed over the last five years as more protectionist measures caused insecurities and dropouts among international investors and donors. Compared to Namibia’s early improvements in infrastructure, Tanzania’s rather one-sided strategy shows less visible effects for the regional economy.
Second, there also exist similarities between both cases. Both corridor initiatives in Namibia and Tanzania have their origins in colonial and post-colonial infrastructures, which served as means of resource extraction from land-locked hinterlands. Their infrastructural axes are historically constituted and (at least partly) continue to be used for the exploitation of raw minerals and natural resources, e. g. from the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt region. In order to ‘deal’ with their legacy of exploitation and their shortcomings, even in postcolonial times, both corridor visions rely therefore on communicating holistic and often blossoming futures for the respective corridor spaces, especially peripheral, rural areas. Social and ecological spheres such as gender inclusiveness, climate change, or nature conservation have clearly been discursively appropriated and turned into narratives that are fundamental for displaying what corridors can and should achieve (Cf. Buseth 2017). However, growth-corridor policy continues to oscillate between economic pathways that are dubbed green and sustainable, and more extractivist realities. This is best illustrated by the conflicting interests in ReconAfrica’s recent oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas along the WBNLDC corridor.
Moreover, both corridor plans targeted the integration of peripheral rural areas into global trade and investment flows. Both the agricultural and the tourism sector have more or less been affected by and indeed partly benefitted from the two corridors. Nonetheless, value capture in the hinterland remains marginal in both cases, perhaps with the exception of the internationally highly contested practice of hunting tourism (Kalvelage et al. 2023) Large parts of the rural population remain excluded from the newly created economic possibilities. In some cases, though, alternative livelihood strategies emerge (e.g. horticulture value chain in the Zambezi region). However, our results indicate that the design of upcoming corridor plans should show increased sensitivity towards the needs and potential of the hinterland if the proclaimed aim of including the hinterland in the benefits of global market integration is to be achieved. It is misleading to simply wait for the promised automatic occurrence of trickle-down effects. In order to tackle these challenges, it is crucial for policy strategies to focus on making targeted investments in local infrastructure, implementing capacity-building initiatives, and fostering the development of inclusive value chains that actively engage rural communities. Beginning with the development of a regional value chain that caters to local markets could be a beneficial starting point for subsistence farmers. This approach would ensure that the economic benefits of market integration are distributed more fairly, promoting sustainable growth and reducing reliance on controversial practices.
Finally, by conceptually linking corridor initiatives with a value-chain perspective, the heterogeneous nature of corridor planning in regard to various economic sectors can be better acknowledged. We paid special attention to the effects of corridors in terms of their impacts on value chains on various scales (global, regional, local). Here, the simplifying concept of value chains can serve to understand the territoriality of corridors and to look at their tendency to intensify uneven accumulation processes. The value chain perspective can therefore serve both as an entry point for conceptualizing how corridors are practised and as a methodological instrument guiding empirical research. By going beyond a container-based understanding of corridors, value-chain perspectives help to discuss the nuances of corridor planning and its impacts on different places and actors.