## Abstract

This paper analyzes how local urban development, and governance therein, are being shaped by the explosion of actors within the donor and investment community in African countries like Mozambique. More specifically, drawing on both qualitative fieldwork in Maputo, existing data on aid and private sector flows to Mozambique, and a spatial analysis of new real estate developments between 2009 and 2017, I forward two novel arguments about the negative externalities fostered by the growing density of the community of international development professionals and their foreign private-sector counterparts in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. their First, I show that the increasing density of international actors in the capital city and living needs, as well as how those needs are treated by the public sector, is deepening a housing, infrastructure, and amenities divide between the rentier and international classes in the city and the majority of low-income residents. Second, I contend that the very readiness of non-tax revenue sources from international agents is enabling a continued reliance on external funding, rather than own-source revenues, for major capital investments. This balance in favor of external financing further diminishes the already weak tax bargaining potential of the local population in making demands for urban development projects that directly serve them. In conclusion, I argue that the international development organizations portending an interest in the enhancement of urban equities and fiscal responsibility across cities like Maputo especially need to rethink their operational presence to better address the perverse externalities of their physical and socio- economic imprints on the urban landscapes in which they operate.

## Introduction

At a high-level Africa-focused development workshop in 2016, a prominent African economist present ed the relevance of Korea and Taiwan's urban development model for Africa, highlighting before and after photos of Seoul and Taipei which captured how mid-twentieth century slums had been removed to make way for gloriously modern urban housing 1 developments and infrastructure projects. When pressed for an explanation about what happened to residents in Seoul and Taipei's informal settlements, or asked about differences in the densities and population size of African informal settlements as compared to the historical ones in Asia referenced, the speaker demurred. Workshop discussions quickly turned back to how to leverage African urbanization for industrialization and economic growth. Development-induced displacement and fair compensation are not especially popular or easy 2 Africa Rising. policy topics within the greater twenty-first century narrative of That narrative instead highlights a shift - largely in non- Africans' perspectives- about the state of affairs on the continent, from generalizations about chaos and poverty to ones about economic growth and opportunity. The economic opportunities envisioned are reflections of the expectation that rapid urbanization across African countries will couple with rising social and economic infrastructure investments to spur a new wave of industrialization by leveraging technological innovation and the continent's young demographic profile (UNECA 2017). Indeed, much of the recent economic scholarship focusing on the continent centers on either calculating the macro-level investments required to address the infrastructure gap and spur industrial growth (Foster and