On a tour of Philippi railway station in Cape Town last week, architect Mokena Makeka explained how a new bridge over the railway line has been designed as an elevated street. More than just a utilitarian structure linking the station on one side with the Kosovo* squatter camp on the other, the bridge incorporates secure spaces for traders selling everything from food to clothes. One entrepreneur even had a sewing machine to make and repair clothes on the bridge. At midday on a Friday, the bridge was comfortably busy.
Down on the street, outside the ground-level station entrance, the amaRastas were selling fruit and vegetables, other vendors were selling a variety of sweets and small items, butchers were selling meat, and others were cooking and selling lunch at braai stands. More informal businesses lined Ingulufe Street on the approach to the station - some operating from homes, others in converted shipping containers, and still others under makeshift shelter or out in the open.
Many of these businesses appeared to be thriving, but there was a building next to the station providing rented space for small businesses, and only a few of the rolldown doors were open. It wasn't clear whether the others were vacant, or only operating during busy commuter periods, but the contrast of this underutilised building with the thriving informal businesses a few metres away highlighted the difficulties faced by planners trying to support the informal economy by providing infrastructure.
One of the biggest challenges lies in the need to provide a means for entry-level informal businesses to grow into something bigger. Many other stations across Cape Town and South Africa face the same situation, and there is no clear model in place for giving these street hawkers a leg up the economic ladder. So I was interested to come across Ethan Zuckerman's post [via Global Voices] about incremental infrastructure. He talks of regulating intelligently to provide an environment that allows for "self-provisioning":
...where you’re building a network to meet your own needs because no one else has built that infrastructure. Where self-provisioning meets incremental infrastructure, I think, is where you overbuild for your personal needs with the goal of selling that capacity to your neighbors... A farmer investing in water pumping equipment that could irrigate both his fields and neighboring fields might be builting pico-level incremental infrastructure, while a mobile phone company that built power plants to provide energy to mobile phone base stations, and used excess capacity to run irrigation pumps might be working on a micro or mini scale.
An example of self-provisioning in the housing sector that is widespread throughout South Africa, in both low-income formal housing settlements and in squatter areas, is the building of shacks or other structures in backyards to provide rental income. In many cases this is illegal, and in squatter settlements it is clearly completely unregulated, but nevertheless appears to be a significant part of the hidden economy. Government-provided low-cost housing often prevents this activity by positioning houses on plots in a way that renders the unbuilt space completely unusable.
Another possibility is in energy supply. Some squatter camps illegally tap electricity from the national grid, with cables running on the ground and propped in the air with Heath Robinson contraptions. While this is patently dangerous, using paraffin for cooking and lighting in shacks made of plastic, cardboard and wood is no better. If government provided the means for legal installation of solar electricity systems and local distribution networks, this would be a perfect opportunity for self-provisioning. Some residents could install a system and sell electricity to their neighbours. And there is a way to address solar affordability.
*Kosovo is one of Cape Town's most unfortunate squatter settlements. In 2005 the camp burned to the ground, and the area is frequently subjected to flooding. Improvement of the area with better social facilities and integration with the transport system is a high priority for government planners.
Incremental or not, what Africa needs is Entrepreneurial Infrastructure
By Andrew Mack
In his piece last month about “incremental infrastructure”, Ethan Zuckerman makes a number of excellent points about the recent development of infrastructure in Africa. Using his example of the entrepreneur who put up cell towers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he rightly observes that there are opportunities to think beyond the traditional, top-down structures of infrastructural development.
He cites the logistical and budgetary problems of many nations as they seek to build out not just the famous “last mile”, but in cases like DRC, many of the basic earlier miles that need to be in place if a country wants to be connected – by road, by power grid, or by wireless. And, while he doesn’t dwell on one of the real reasons for this failure – Government disorganization or outright corruption – he hints at it as a driving force which creates both the space and the need for other approaches.
However, while the idea of incremental infrastructure is interesting, I would argue that at least to some extent, Ethan’s argument misses the larger point. It is not incremental infrastructure so much as “entrepreneurial infrastructure” that Africa needs and has shown it wants.
By focusing on the example of cell towers in DRC, Ethan may have chosen the one item best suited for incremental infrastructure. But consider roads... if a community – or a firm – decides to build an incremental piece of road, and who pays? Who maintains the road? Who sets the safety standards (as road accidents are an epidemic in many African countries today)? And what if the road doesn’t connect in to a larger grid? Clearly, while cellphones may not need coordination to function, most other pieces of infrastructure – roads, energy, etc. – do. And they need standards.
Moreover, there are issues of economy of scale and policy. Consider the case of neighboring Uganda. In Uganda, cellphone licenses were bid out, encouraging competition, and cellphone use has grown from some 5,000 lines in 1998 to more than 2.6 MILLION today. The major carriers have invested – and made – millions, and I would argue, have done more for Uganda’s development than most of the major donors over the last decade. A licensing regime that favored incremental providers might have brought service to a few villages, but today, CelTel is the largest taxpayer in the country, serving the entire nation and recently, offering no-roaming service across the sub-region – in Kenya, Tanzania, and recently also in DRC. An incremental approach would not have been able to provide this service, pure and simple.
What we need to do is re-orient our thinking, I believe. Rather than focusing on the challenges – and there are many – we need to step out of our past frame and see the markets as what they are: big and underserved. What we need is not so much small (incremental) infrastructure as infrastructure that is constructed by people with an entrepreneurial mindset. If the Government of Kenya is prepared to invest in wiring classrooms and has both the scale and technical savvy to pull it off, that’s great. If the private sector can do it better, then the Government should act as facilitator. In some instances, a public-private approach will be the best.
Without question, Ethan makes a good point about the effectiveness of many large projects in Africa, especially famous dam projects and the like. Still, this is not unique either to Africa, or to energy. Corruption and a lack of oversight will ruin a project, whether it’s managed by a poor African Government or Halliburton. Especially in infrastructure, the key is getting value for money. Everybody – Governments, the private sector, and consumers themselves – all need to think entrepreneurially.
In the end, while small may be beautiful in many things, I wouldn’t want my own water system in Washington, DC any more than my friends in Lamu would want their own. What they want is a water system that works. Based on my observations from more than 20 years work on the continent, I would argue that a focus on the incremental could – while providing solutions in some areas – actually hurt efforts to build a more complete and more robust African infrastructure with the policies and investments to make it sustainable.
While there will always be underserved areas where other options might not be possible, incremental infrastructure would be a poor substitute for the kind of top shelf, state of the art infrastructure Africans are looking for, the kind of infrastructure that could help them compete in the global economy.
Andrew Mack is the Founder and Principal of AMGlobal Consulting, and a former World Bank official. He can be reached at: contact@amglobal.com
Posted by: Andrew Mack | 17 September 2007 at 06:55 PM
Absolutely: without entrepreneurial enterprise, none of my examples would be happening. A key point I was trying to make is that entrepreneurs need an enabling environment, whether that be through municipalities setting appropriate standards for houses and bulk services, or developing innovative financing schemes, or providing infrastructure that lets businesses flourish.
In Philippi, it was interesting to see absolutely none of the ubiquitous minibus taxis anywhere near the station. Instead, the unregulated "cockroach" taxis - not quite a metered taxi, not quite a minibus - have taken over a facility built for minibuses. And they seem to be operating with impunity, perhaps because it is recognised that in some areas of Cape Town they provide an essential service, filling a gap that has been left by the minibuses that are becoming more like true buses (albeit a smaller version) under South Africa's current public transport policy.
In public transport regulation, South Africa is always at least one step behind the industry, and is therefore never in a position to enable its transformation into something that will really support a healthy economy.
Where I don't quite agree with Andrew is in the assertion that "state of the art infrastructure" is what is needed for South Africa to compete globally. What South Africa needs is greater diversity in the way infrastructure and services are developed and maintained, and a government that both provides and facilitates effectively.
Incremental infrastructure is not the poor cousin of world's best practice; it is a means for transforming a poor existing environment into South African best practice (benchmarked, where appropriate, against international experience).
But it's not only about incremental infrastructure; neither is it only about mega-projects. Too many big projects are just political statements that bear no relation to broader needs, and too many small-scale initiatives don't manage to scale up to turn street hawkers into successful business people.
As Andrew suggests, let's refocus. The key is in getting the mix right for local conditions in a global context.
Posted by: Rory | 17 September 2007 at 10:46 PM