Duality by Design

With a wealth of empirical evidence, this book exposes a fundamental choice underlying infrastructure development in Africa and elsewhere. Western development agencies emphasize institution-building, good governance and transparency with the result that investment is slow. In contrast, Chinese agencies seek to get it done so that investment is quick, but possibly unsustainable. Foreshadows a new era of geopolitics on the African continent. Carliss Y. Baldwin, Harvard Business School Africa's capacity for prosperity - which depends on the development of its infrastructure - is central to our way of life for a slate of reasons that are laid out in this terrific book. Gil explains what it will take to assure Africa's stability and security. This is essential reading for scholars interested in the construction of institutions, and for anyone interested in international political economy. Anita McGahan, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto Duality by design: the global race to build Africa's infrastructure is a rich and thought-provoking work, whose data and conclusions illuminate the Latin American reflection on the challenges in the development of infrastructure projects. Rafael Vadim, President of the Brazilian Institute of Legal Studies in Infrastructure (2014-2016) and editor of the Brazilian Journal of Infrastructure. Africa has a rapidly growing population, which is projected to reach 40% of the world's population by 2100. This rapid growth in population highlights the challenges presented by an infrastructure which is already woefully inadequate. Drawing on an extensive body of research, this book focusses on the incompatibility between building institutions and capital investment, a fundamental question that will become ever more pressing as the growth in population demands better infrastructure to serve it. The Western approach of institutional building as a necessary precursor to investment contrasts sharply with the Chinese focus on speed of investment, a contrast which will become more sharply drawn and debated in the future. This book makes a valuable contribution to that debate and is essential reading for all those interested in the provision of infrastructure to meet the needs of the growing population of Africa. John Roberts CBE, FREng, Former CEO, United Utilities. This book presents a new, probing and insightful slant on the well-trodden discussion of the duality involved in promoting infrastructure development in emerging market countries with weak institutions: Is it better to support painfully slow and steady enhancement of local institutions to create stronger and more transparent local capabilities for managing infrastructure service delivery in the public interest, or, is it better to enhance infrastructure services to citizens more rapidly by using external financing and expertise to develop projects rapidly, in spite of-or by exploiting-the extant weak institutions and yawning institutional gaps in these countries in the hope that the broad societal prosperity thus generated will ultimately lead to better governance? Rather than treating this as a dilemma with dichotomous alternatives, each with its pros and cons, this book delivers hard-hitting arguments and multiple case studies to support the idea of looking for hybrid organizational solutions that can maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of both approaches. It poses questions that can help to launch a new set of research and experimentation in support of the aspirations and goals of both the local populations and the grantee countries and multilateral institutions that support infrastructure development. It is well worth a read! Raymond E. Levitt, Kumagai Professor of Engineering Emeritus, and Director, The Global Projects Center, Stanford University.