Who governs time governs development

 

For decades, Africa’s development debate has been framed around familiar shortages: capital, infrastructure, skills, state capacity. When projects fail or reforms stall, the explanation is usually the same—insufficient resources, weak institutions, poor implementation.

This diagnosis is increasingly misleading.

Africa’s core disadvantage today is not a lack of capital or competence. It is the loss of control over time—over when decisions become binding, when options close, and when futures are effectively decided.

Development, in the 21st century, is less about delivering projects than about governing time.

Power has moved upstream

In a world shaped by financialisation, long-term contracts, global value chains, technological and geopolitical uncertainties, power no longer sits primarily at the point of execution. It sits upstream, in the moment when expectations harden into commitments.

Once a contract is signed, infrastructure financed, or standard adopted, time collapses. What follows is implementation, not choice.

Countries that control this upstream moment can sequence reforms, delay extraction, experiment, and revise strategy. Those that do not find themselves implementing futures they did not fully choose.

Africa increasingly falls into the second category.

The illusion of decision-making

Across extractives, infrastructure, climate policy and industrial strategy, African governments appear to be making sovereign decisions: granting licences, approving investments, launching reforms. But many of these decisions occur after the most consequential choices have already been made.

Feasibility studies define what is “viable”. Financing conditions fix timelines. Offtake agreements pre-commit output. International standards determine market access. By the time political leaders act, the clock has already been set.

This creates an illusion of agency. Governments decide how to implement, but not when or whether to proceed.

That distinction is everything.

 

Why speed becomes a trap

Africa is constantly told it must move quickly. The window of opportunity is narrow. Markets are volatile. Technology is evolving. Investors are impatient.

Speed, in this narrative, is portrayed as prudence.

In reality, speed often functions as a mechanism of discipline. It compresses debate, sidelines alternatives and privileges actors who already command expertise, capital and foresight. The faster the decision, the less room there is to contest assumptions or sequence development strategically.

Countries that rush rarely catch up. They lock in.

 

Temporal authority, not administrative capacity

What is missing is temporal authority: the ability of the state to decide when commitments should be made, when uncertainty should be tolerated, and when waiting preserves value.

Temporal authority allows governments to say: not yet, not this way, not on these terms.

Without it, states substitute acceleration for strategy. They license instead of learning. They extract instead of sequencing. They implement instead of governing.

This is why many reforms arrive too late. By the time policymakers act, the future has already been stabilised elsewhere.

 

Extractives make the problem visible

The extractive sector reveals this dynamic most clearly.

African countries sit atop minerals essential to the global energy transition. Yet industrialisation and value addition remain elusive. The usual explanation points to infrastructure gaps or market size.

But the deeper issue is timing.

Extraction decisions are locked in early through contracts and financing structures that assume export. Industrial policy is introduced later, once the economic logic has hardened. Reform then appears disruptive, costly or unrealistic—not because it is wrong, but because time has already been lost.

This is not a failure of vision. It is a failure of temporal control.

Governing time is governing development

Development success depends on the ability to keep futures open long enough to learn, negotiate and adapt. That requires resisting premature certainty, not eliminating uncertainty at the first opportunity.

It requires public institutions capable of delaying commitments, sequencing decisions and absorbing short-term pressure in service of long-term outcomes.

Most importantly, it requires recognising that time itself is a political resource—one that can be governed, delegated or surrendered.

A different development question

The most important question for African development today is not “how fast can we implement?”, but “who decides when it is time to commit?”

As long as that decision is made elsewhere—by financiers, investors, or external partners—development will continue to disappoint, no matter how many projects are launched or strategies announced.

In the modern global economy, those who govern time govern development.

Africa’s challenge is not to do more, faster.
It is to reclaim the authority to decide when doing more makes sense.