Why not? Africa’s goal isn’t to be a continent that constantly lags behind Europe/North America. They want to leapfrog Western countries just like China did and that’s challenging to achieve without proper infrastructure investment.
On the other hand, the bridging and tunneling expertise developed by these projects would enable more extensive public works across other domains as well, so it’s not “wasted money”.
Also, what people miss is that Africa today lacks education across the stack. It isn’t the case that African countries have a well-educated labour pool but simply no expertise in HSR (like the US, which will spend on the order of $100 billion trying to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with HSR), but that many African countries simply lack the well-educated labour pool in the first place. Building out these large projects is simultaneously a means of economic stimulus and a means of targeted education in core engineering disciplines.
This kind of work is essential to before there can be any hope of replacing more skilled workers with African ones. That’s also why you see a lot of foreign workers on these projects: the expertise and experience simply isn’t there domestically to ensure that the project can complete on-time and under-budget.
Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.
African countries are currently negotiating loan agreements with countries such as China while avoiding Western interests as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
China has a history of offering aggressive upfront costs on loans in exchange for a lot of influence in the region. So I’m guessing China gave the AU a sweetheart deal in exchange for cutting out competitors and potentially allowing China a lot of lenience in future investments (e.g. sweatshops and unsafe mines).
So here’s what I see the strategy as:
give the AU a very expensive loan with an initial deferment; the leadership of the AU is happy because they can show the public that they’re doing something
some years down the line, the AU realizes it can’t actually pay the debt, and arranges further deals with China that increases China’s influence in the area
repeat 2 until Africa has been bled dry just as much as with European colonial powers
I don’t see this as a real long-term solution. Instead of trying to connect every African country, they should pick favorites at first, with a contract with member countries to eventually expand to everyone. As in, connect the most prosperous areas that will absolutely use the rail network, and expand once that cash flows, and do so without massive loans from countries with an economic interest in exploiting the area.
I just don’t see China’s interests aligning with the EU. This just seems likely to have heavy corruption where the AU gets short term benefits for a long term sellout of the AU to China.
Again, I have no idea why you’re assuming these countries haven’t done due diligence before embarking on a megaproject like this. A really weird premise to start from to be honest.
If you wanted to make a serious critique then you should spend the time to actually learn about the project and criticize specifics instead of just making stuff up based on what your country does.
Removed by mod
Why not? Africa’s goal isn’t to be a continent that constantly lags behind Europe/North America. They want to leapfrog Western countries just like China did and that’s challenging to achieve without proper infrastructure investment.
Removed by mod
On the other hand, the bridging and tunneling expertise developed by these projects would enable more extensive public works across other domains as well, so it’s not “wasted money”.
Also, what people miss is that Africa today lacks education across the stack. It isn’t the case that African countries have a well-educated labour pool but simply no expertise in HSR (like the US, which will spend on the order of $100 billion trying to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with HSR), but that many African countries simply lack the well-educated labour pool in the first place. Building out these large projects is simultaneously a means of economic stimulus and a means of targeted education in core engineering disciplines.
This kind of work is essential to before there can be any hope of replacing more skilled workers with African ones. That’s also why you see a lot of foreign workers on these projects: the expertise and experience simply isn’t there domestically to ensure that the project can complete on-time and under-budget.
Removed by mod
Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
Removed by mod
Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.
I don’t see why Africa would invest in outdated technology when they can have high speed rail. There’s literally zero rationale to do that.
Removed by mod
I think the benefits of going high speed rail now would outweigh the negatives of upgrading at a later point.
Removed by mod
My main concern here is this:
China has a history of offering aggressive upfront costs on loans in exchange for a lot of influence in the region. So I’m guessing China gave the AU a sweetheart deal in exchange for cutting out competitors and potentially allowing China a lot of lenience in future investments (e.g. sweatshops and unsafe mines).
So here’s what I see the strategy as:
I don’t see this as a real long-term solution. Instead of trying to connect every African country, they should pick favorites at first, with a contract with member countries to eventually expand to everyone. As in, connect the most prosperous areas that will absolutely use the rail network, and expand once that cash flows, and do so without massive loans from countries with an economic interest in exploiting the area.
I just don’t see China’s interests aligning with the EU. This just seems likely to have heavy corruption where the AU gets short term benefits for a long term sellout of the AU to China.
Removed by mod
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the actual economists in Africa have done the math here.
Removed by mod
Again, I have no idea why you’re assuming these countries haven’t done due diligence before embarking on a megaproject like this. A really weird premise to start from to be honest.
Removed by mod
If you wanted to make a serious critique then you should spend the time to actually learn about the project and criticize specifics instead of just making stuff up based on what your country does.
Removed by mod