Making a donor city: The contested trajectories of urban development in Beira city, Mozambique

Abstract

Making a donor city explores the novel politics of development and struggles over urban space which emerge when a heterogeneous African city becomes targeted by massive investments in infrastructure and urban planning by various international donors. Set in Beira city, Mozambique, the country's opposition stronghold, this study details how a once neglected underdog of the postcolonial state has recently emerged as a new frontier of international interest. Based on in-depth empirical analysis, the study unpacks the various actors and practices currently contending over Beira's future. From international consultants to urban farmers and political elites, it reveals a complex arena of contradictory interests which is shaping the city in unexpected ways, while transcending simple binaries of formal/ informal and global/local. By doing so, the study provides crucial insights into the emerging era of African urban development and its implications for specific urban contexts, arguing that it represents a new era of urban geopolitics which is fundamentally about competing claims to urban space. These findings provide a novel empirical contribution to contemporary debates on African urbanism, development politics and urban land grabbing which will be of relevance to scholars, policy makers and activists alike.