Declaring it “the most substantive project the AU has ever signed with a partner,” Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson of the African Union Commission, praised China late last month for agreeing to help the African continent knit its disparate infrastructure together.
A memorandum of understanding signed by Zuma and China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming in Addis Ababa commits China to accelerating the integration of the African continent, with its 1 billion people, 54 nations, and abysmal transport links between and among nearly all of the countries concerned. It is often harder and more costly to travel the length of the continent, than it is to fly to Europe or Asia along established links. Equally, even train or road travel between neighboring nations is difficult, sometimes impossible. And inflated freight rates are much less expensive from an African port to Europe or China than they are from one African country to another.
All of these transport realities reflect the continent’s colonial legacies and persisting ties to former mother countries. Those colonial linkages severely hinder the development of Africa and the fostering of intra-African trade and well as Pan-African identities. It is much easier to fly from Chad to South Africa via Paris, with regular air services, than to try to negotiate and manage several switches of plane and many delays within much less organized and available African corridors.
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