Contribution to local enterprise development of infrastructure for commodity extraction projects : Tanzania’s central corridor and Mozambique’s Zambezi valley
Date
2011-03
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The Open University
Abstract
This report investigates in what way the provision and management of infrastructure (or shortcomings therein) has constrained or enabled mining investment and local firm linkages to this mining activity (with a primary focus on the recent experience on Tanzania‟s Central Development Corridor and the Zambezi Valley in Mozambique). The usefulness of the development corridor approach to enhance the scope for linked small enterprise development and more diversified economic development is explored in the context of increased minerals investment. The points of focus in the research demonstrate an awareness of the need to break away from the so-called “enclave” model of resource extraction that characterized Africa‟s colonial past where infrastructure developed primarily to serve narrow interests and objectives of those seeking to exploit the continent‟s resources. For governments and other stakeholders managing the complexities associated with configuring and timing large-scale infrastructure investments to enable much needed foreign direct investment, the development corridor approach has been suggested as one which might offer scope for balancing the needs of large scale, largely foreign, investors with those of wider domestic economic and social interests. The study findings point to a variety of factors that have made the necessary coordination by different stakeholders hard to achieve: at best a process with limited and incremental gains in Tanzania but one with a higher degree of measured progress in Mozambique. By adopting progressive policies and creative solutions to the delivery of infrastructure upgrades in the Zambezi Valley, it appears that the prospects for leveraging mineral investments to enable diversified economic development have been enhanced. On the Central Development Corridor, the continuing dysfunctionality of much of the corridor infrastructure continues to constrain “anchor” mineral investments, wider domestic business growth and the appetite for greater local procurement by the mining companies. Issues associated with mining of different commodity types, political will and forms of regional collaboration and their impact on the potential utility of the development corridor approach are also discussed.
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Working Paper
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Keywords
ZIMBABWE--ZAMBEZI VALLEY, MOZAMBIQUE, INFRASTRUCTURE, MINERAL COMMODITIES, PUBLIC INVESTMENT, DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY, DEVELOPMENT PLANNING, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, LOCAL PLANNING, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, MOZAMBIQUE--ZAMBEZI VALLEY, TANZANIA--CENTRAL CORRIDOR