China frames the Africa Solar Belt as a clean-energy access story. Yet the materials it lists – streetlights, kits, one power station – sit against a shortfall of more than 600 million people.
Section
Economics
Floating the Shortfall: Bui Adds Solar to Steady a River-Bound Grid
Bui’s hydropower output swings with the Black Volta. Ghana’s answer is to float solar on the same reservoir – turning one dam into a planning platform.
Corridors over showpieces: why the link between projects matters most
A single railway is a ribbon-cutting. A working corridor is an economy. The gap between the two is where most African trade still loses money.
Kano-Maradi: A Rail Line Built to Loosen a Landlocked Country’s Knot
The Kano-Maradi railway is sold as regional integration – landlocked Niger reaching Nigerian ports. But its lead builder is Portuguese, its earthworks Chinese, and its bill near US$2bn.
Nigeria’s Coastal Rail: A 1,400km Promise Against a Decade of Delay
Nigeria frames a Lagos-to-Calabar coastal railway as the spine of corridor industrialisation. Yet the line has been launched, stalled and relaunched since 2014, its funding switching hands more than
Abuja-Kaduna Rail: The Safe Corridor a Single Attack Reframed
Nigeria’s first modern intercity railway became prized as the safe way to travel a kidnap-prone road. In 2022 an attack on a train tested that promise.
Djibouti-Ethiopia Rail: When Sea Access Runs Through a Neighbour’s Port
A railway can carry a landlocked country’s trade to the coast in hours. It cannot make that coast its own.
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.
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.