Introduction

This chapter provides a brief overview of the colonial legacy and decay of Africa’s railways. Colonial geographies, imperial spatial strategies and railway developments have created spatial path dependencies, while decade-long chronic underinvestment and failed railway privatisations had left African railway systems dilapidated at the turn of the twentieth century. These historical developments have conditioned the context in which Africa’s contemporary “railway renaissance” unfolds. Subsequently, we contextualise the railway renaissance by discussing the recent return of “big infrastructure” onto the agenda of African policy-makers and spatial planners at national, regional and continental scales. China has become one of the primary capital providers for infrastructure projects generally and for African railways especially. We sketch the economic functions of railways in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and their political value in the context of South-South cooperation. We argue that Africa’s current railway renaissance is owed to a particular conjuncture of two significant and interrelated politico-economic developments: the gradual return of state-steered infrastructure development in (African) development discourse and practice, and China’s ambition to become an “infrastructure giant” in Africa (and elsewhere). This book thus provides deeper insights into two simultaneous empirical phenomena: (1) the rapid transformation of Africa’s (transport) infrastructure landscape generally and the “renaissance” of rail transportation in particular; and (2) the rise of Chinese banks and firms to become the world’s largest railway financiers and constructors overseas. This chapter discusses controversies that have affected Sino-African “railway politics” at various levels and identifies certain key issues that are likely to influence the future of Africa’s railway renaissance – and China’s role in it. Lastly, this chapter introduces themes and case studies covered in this book.