Lane, Matthew; Mwathunga, Evance; Robinson, Jennifer; (2025) African experiments in infrastructure financialisation: an urbanisation of debt in Malawi. Financ Space , 2 (1) pp. 237-259. 10.1080/2833115X.2025.2516571.

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Abstract

Diverging from accounts that portray financialisation in the Global South as 'subordinate' to that experienced in the north, in this paper we examine the recent financing and delivery of urban infrastructure projects in Malawi using bonds sold on the domestic market. We do so to make two contributions to the geographical literature on financialisation. Firstly, to reveal how (contrary to accounts in the recent international development literature) non-revenue generating urban infrastructure debt is able to be assetised on domestic markets in poorer countries, despite seemingly restrained and indebted fiscal backdrops. Secondly, to account for the wider political, economic, and social implications that arise from using the growth in domestic capital markets (principally in the form of pension funds) to finance the delivery of large-scale urban infrastructure projects. Through our analysis we argue that an 'urbanisation of debt' is taking place in Malawi with statement urban infrastructure projects a potential new arena for achieving a range of domestic macro-economic agendas. This serves to challenge perceptions of urban Africa as an inert landscape, inconducive to flows of private-sector investment, instead emphasising the importance of articulating what types of capital logics are being drawn to African urbanisation, and why.

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