The Transcalar Politics of Urban Infrastructure Development: The Greater Accra Climate Resilient and Integrated Development Project (GARID)

Abstract

Resilient infrastructure is heralded globally as one of the most critical needs of cities, particularly African cities since rapid urbanization and climate change present daunting challenges to governments and city authorities. In the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), Ghana’s most urbanized region, a wide range of international donors, development agencies, national and supranational institutions are involved in financing major infrastructure investments (e.g., drainage, roads, railways), requiring close interaction with political decision-makers to implement resilient urban infrastructure development (UID) projects. In this paper, we focus on the transcalar politics of such urban developments, drawing on the case of the Greater Accra Climate Resilient and Integrated Development Project (GARID). We question assumptions that international policy interventions responding to climate change are reformatting city governments for globally-oriented financialised and market-oriented development. Rather, through this case study, we make two observations. First, although UID is being enacted through international actors interfacing with Ghana’s ostensibly decentralized model of governance, this process nonetheless fosters a strong centralization of decision-making in national state entities; city governments have little agency or benefit from investments in UID. Secondly, the agency of national actors in UID is strongly evident. We show how the practices of a range of different actors and their networks shape the implementation of internationally funded urban resilient investments in Accra. Also important are the located histories of environmental crises and pathways of urban politics. The study recommends refocusing analytical attention on how transcalar networks of state and non-state actors contribute to the (re)construction of urban territories.