African railway megaprojects and China’s development model
Posted: 07 Mar 2021, 10:01
These two African railway megaprojects tell us a lot about China’s development model
Surprisingly, local rules matter more than Chinese government guidelines...
My research on two Chinese railway megaprojects in East Africa — the Nairobi-Mombasa line and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa-Djibouti project — suggests the fears that China is upending development guidelines might be misplaced... these two railway megaprojects show that implementation largely depends on local conditions. My research suggests insufficient Chinese government enforcement of CSR policies encourages Chinese organizations and enterprises to follow host-government guidelines. At times, this means Chinese companies resort to what I call “adaptive governance” — in both of these railway projects, for instance, Chinese state-owned enterprises followed host-country guidance on procurement, environmental, land and labor regulations, even if these regulations were less stringent than Chinese rules...