Spatial implications of foreign direct investment (FDI) on infrastructure delivery: A case of the City of Lusaka, Zambia
Master Thesis
2018
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University of Cape Town
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The is a strong belief that FDI offers possibilities towards a development that has eluded developing countries for decades. It has become a predominant feature in development policy. The influence towards this orientation to development emanates from geopolitical dynamisms that have revolutionized global production systems at the hands of globalization. Innovations in urban economic development strategies concentrate on integrating local economies into the global market through the provision of infrastructure as the operative of global capital inflows. It is argued, however, that to exploit the full benefits of FDI, not only should the country attract the appropriate kind of investment, but its investment policy should be consistent in its interaction and engagements with the overall country's development policy regimes. Appropriateness in this argument entails that, with infrastructure identified as the primary requirement for attracting FDI, it is not only a question of being able to link the provision of infrastructure to attract investment but understanding the social-technical nature of infrastructure and its overall spatial manifestation as a function of urban form and structure. It is the spatial character underlying urban production systems, which development strategies such as FDI need to appropriately understand because it is at that interface were FDI-economic growth argument translate into economic development. Using a formulated conceptual framework based on Socio-Technical Systems (STS) theorization, the study assessed the spatial impacts of the FDI on infrastructure in the City of Lusaka in Zambia. It identified key institutions at the fulcrum of investment promotion and spatial development planning with a focus on planning and provision of network infrastructure. It also reviewed the main policies and legislation driving the FDI-led development agenda. The findings point out that national government priorities at significantly focused on the provision of infrastructure, however, on a very selective and narrow perspective. Infrastructure provision priority is in what is termed as 'economic infrastructure' argued to be the missing element in attracting FDI. What was also discovered, which in a way explains how infrastructure provision is narrowly considered, is a fragmented institutional framework resulting from inadequate legislation. The inadequacies lack of recognition of the spatial embeddedness of investment in the legislation resulting in disconnection between investment strategies formulation and spatial development planning. The overarching conclusion from the study is that to actualize the benefits of FDI substantially, the framework of regimes at the core of advancing the development goal driven by infrastructure, needs to understand the socio-technical nature of network infrastructure. A purely economic consideration of infrastructure as was discovered in the study, significantly limits FDI's contributive value to development.
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Musonda, C. 2018. Spatial implications of foreign direct investment (FDI) on infrastructure delivery: A case of the City of Lusaka, Zambia. University of Cape Town.