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ABSTRACT
This article examines the factors that facilitate or hinder credible commitment in large dam investment cooperation in sub-Saharan Africa, which even with an abundance of untapped hydropower potential has a shortfall of electricity generation and supply. Research finds an uneven pattern of large dam development on the continent, indicating the lack of traditional investment to promote energy security. Investment for hydropower development requires cooperation between several stakeholders, and its success depends on the credible commitment by a host government. Drawing on a comparative study of the Cahora Bassa Dam and the Inga III Project, this article examines why the latter yielded a failed outcome. The study finds that factors such as regime insecurity and uncertainty, regime type and the institutions, context and interest of actors, as well as market and market proximity can incentivise and equally hinder a host government’s ability to credibly commit to large dam investment cooperation.
Acknowledgements:
This paper was presented at a joint postgraduate students’ conference on International Relations and African Affairs, hosted by the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in December 2019, hosted by the Department of Politics and International Relations and the SARChI Chair in African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at the University of Johannesburg. This paper draws on the author’s PhD thesis submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. The author is appreciative of the anonymous referees and the editor for their constructive feedback on this paper, which draws on the author’s PhD thesis submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Note on contributor
Ekeminiabasi Eyita-Okon is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Notes
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44 H. Olivier, Great dams in Southern Africa (Cape Town: Purnell, 1976), 26, 60.
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52 Congo Research Group and Resource Matters, ‘Inga III: Kept in the Dark: How the World’s Largest Hydropower Site is being Negotiated behind Closed Doors,’ 2016, http://congoresearchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/GEC_Resource-Matters_Inga-III_EN_final-2.pdf.
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64 Fabricius, ‘Inga dream again deferred.’
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72 B. A. Leeds, ‘Domestic political institutions, credible commitments, and international cooperation,’ American Journal of Political Science 43, no. 4 (1999): 979–1002.
73 Leeds, ‘Domestic political institutions, credible commitments, and international cooperation.’
74 S. Lohmann, ‘Why do Institutions Matter? An Audience-Cost Theory of Institutional Commitment,’ Governance 16, no. 1 (2003): 95–110.
75 Isaacman, ‘Domesticating a white elephant.’
76 Foreign Affairs, ‘Big Man in Congo: A Conversation with Joseph Kabila,’ 14 December 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/interviews/2018-12-14/big-man-congo.
77 D. North, Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
78 A. Isaacman and B. Isaacman, Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007 (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2013).
79 S. Lezhnev, ‘A Criminal State: Understanding and Countering Institutionalized Corruption and Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo,’ 2016, https://enoughproject.org/files/A_Criminal_State_Enough_Oct2016_web.pdf.
80 O.E. Williamson, ‘Comparative Economic Organization: The Analysis of Discrete Structural Alternatives,’ Administrative Science Quarterly 63 (1991): 269–96. This expression, while used in referring to Mobutu Seso Seko who was in office at the time, can equally be applied to Joseph Kabila, as established by several reports. See Lezhnev, A Criminal State.
81 Gulf news, ‘Construction of world’s largest dam in DR Congo could begin within months,’ 28 May 2016, https://gulfnews.com/world/africa/construction-of-worlds-largest-dam-in-dr-congo-could-begin-within-months-1.1836126
82 Gulf news, ‘Construction of world’s largest dam in DR Congo could begin within months.’
83 Personal interview, second respondent from Trans-Africa Project (TAP), September 2016.
84 Congo Research Group and Phuzumoya Consulting, ‘I Need You, I Don’t Need You: South Africa and Inga III,’ March 2020, http://congoresearchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/south-africa-inga-3-report-i-need-you-i-dont-need-you.pdf.
85 The Copperbelt is a region in Central Africa, located along the border between Zambia and the DRC housing huge deposits of copper. See J. Van Wilderode, H.A. El Desouky, M.A. Elburg, F. Vanhaecke, and P. Muchez, ‘Metal Sources for the Katanga Copperbelt Deposits (DRC)’: Insights from SR and ND Isotope Ratios,’ Geologica Belgica 17, no. 2 (2014): 137–47.
86 Personal interview, first respondent from Trans-Africa Project (TAP), September 2016.
87 World Bank, ‘Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of $ 3,750 Million to Eskom Holdings Limited Guaranteed by Republic of South Africa for an Eskom Investment Support Project,’ Energy Group: Sustainable Development Department, Africa Region, March 2010,
88 Personal interview, first respondent from Trans-Africa Project (TAP), September 2016.