Africa’s entire rail network is today only slightly larger than France’s and Germany’s combined. In west Africa only one cross-border line is still working. Very few railways in Africa are seen by private investors as commercially viable. However. America hopes rail investments can pull the resource-rich region into its orbit, and secure the minerals critical for the transition to green energy. China, whose firms own many of the mines and send their output home for processing, is gaining a stranglehold on supply. For African governments the long-run challenge is to overcome the “pit-to-port” model that has defined the continent’s railways since their colonial heyday.
