[levi-turner]

My memory from some introductory classes in African Studies from the mid-aughts has any relevancy here. The standard narrative at the time was that the Colonial investments in Africa, as a rule, involved building infrastructure to connect the interiors to the cost in the colony. The consequence of this is that post-colonial economies do not get to leverage this investment for inter-country trade. Imagine trade from Chicago to New York _requiring_ routing through the Mississippi up the coast to the port of New York. From a cursory look over the waterways of Africa, I am seeing similar features (interior > coast without much cross country coverage). At the end of the day we're all outsiders to this field, but I do wonder whether focusing on the presence / length without the connectivity overlay is missing a key component.