This is a response case. The excitation is the fourth industrial revolution, and it is modelled as a stepped sinusoidal function. The object is transport in the lower-income (high-growth) countries, and particularly Africa. The paper retains the methodological variety of case study. Semiotic...

Crises force us to stop and think. This paper examines the prospect of deep reform of national planning in Africa in response to COVID-19. The paper is a contrasted case study of Kenya and Uganda. The attempt at generalisation across Africa draws on a shared history of state formation. And a...

The cash reserve (‘dry powder') of private equity (PE) is approximately US$1 trillion. The force of PE is hitting public-private partnerships (PPP). That excitation is affecting the delivery of infrastructure across the world. This paper draws on the limit cycle of dynamical systems to analyze...

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) is a ubiquitous reality. In Africa, the wave of PPP has hit states in their infancy – still moulding following only 50 years since independence. The common perspective of PPP on the realms of scholarship is transactional (focused on the delivery-end of...

It is estimated that transport investment in Sub-Saharan Africa is less than one third of what is required to meet economic growth targets underlying the Millennium Development Goals. To boost investment in the transport sector, the region cannot but resort to private finance wherever possible....

This paper attends to institutional challenges Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces in its attempt to capture private finance for transport infrastructure management. The paper starts with an exposition of the state of the road network in SSA, identifying a major gap in investment. This gap is partly...

Urbanisation is a product of technological progress. The paper traces technological progress in Africa and attempts to model its future. It starts with definitional and conceptual issues. The meaning and interactions of technology, engineering and science have attracted a lot of debate in the...

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) needs to invest 1.5-2.0 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on roads annually, over at least five years, which amounts to typically a threefold increase in spending. Otherwise the road network will continue to pose a major impediment to achieving the first goal...

The interaction between transport and social welfare is one of the most complex problems in Africa. It is a challenge of intertwined disciplinary issues of science — both social and natural sciences. It begs interdisciplinarity. This paper explores the future of interdisciplinarity in research...