Congo's $1.26B Railway Revival Highlights Africa's Colonial Infrastructure Legacy

Congo's Council of Ministers approved a $1.26 billion deal in August 2026 to rehabilitate the Dilolo–Sakania railway, a roughly 1,000-kilometre line connecting the Angolan and Zambian borders through the copper belt. The project forms part of the broader Lobito Corridor, whose backbone is the Benguela Railway, originally chartered in 1902 to move Katanga copper to an Atlantic port. Critics note that most colonial-era African railways were built as extraction routes — connecting mines or plantations directly to coastal ports — rather than as networks linking African cities and markets to each other. Compounding this structural problem, colonial powers built railways in incompatible gauges, meaning freight must often be unloaded and reloaded at modern borders where two legacy networks meet. The rehabilitation raises a broader question about whether Africa is rebuilding the infrastructure it needs or simply restoring a century-old system designed for someone else's benefit.