External publications

Resurrecting a presumed ghost: the challenges and revival of the Southern agricultural growth corridor of Tanzania in a changing political landscape

Mudimu, George T. / Michael Brüntrup / Khamaldin Daud Mutabazi
External Publications (2025)

in: Third World Quaterly, first published 05.05.2026

DOI: https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2491092
Open access

The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT)gained significant international attention after its announcement byformer Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete as one of Africa’s first agri-cultural development corridors. Since then, SAGCOT has faced sporadicchanges in a shifting political economy context. This study examineshow SAGCOT has evolved across different political regimes in Tanzania,and how political regime orientation shapes the country’s agriculturetransition, especially its corridor approach. In addition, the articlefocuses on what dynamics led SAGCOT to suffer the fate of other large-scale public projects and what arguments support its revival. Evidencereveals that the broader political economy and development approachundertaken by the state, ranging from modernisation through foreignand private investments, agricultural investments, resource nationalism,industrialisation and pragmatism, have supported SAGCOT growth andalso brought about negligence and the decline of SAGCOT withinTanzania’s broader economic transformation. This points to the central-ity of a political regime’s orientation as important in understandingagriculture transformation, especially in agrarian-based economies.Although designed as an international private–public partnershipcrafted to survive any regime change, it has been strongly affected bythe shifting priorities of successive regimes. These findings provide les-sons for similar national lighthouse projects.

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