China’s Indispensable Role in Africa’s Railway Renaissance

Over the past 20 years, tens of thousands of kilometers of new railway lines have been built across Africa – much of it constructed and financed by China. But the days when Beijing paid big bucks to build these kinds of large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa have come to an end.

Today, China’s development priorities on the continent are focused more on fostering industrialization and building smaller, greener projects mostly in the energy and telecommunications sectors. But even without the Chinese, a number of African governments are moving forward with ambitious plans to build vast regional rail networks.