Sweden's Spatial Planning Narratives on African Futures : Contemporary Discourses in Development Cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa

Sammanfattning

In the development cooperation landscape of Sub-Saharan Africa, Sweden has served as a distinctive donor over the last three decades, extending substantial bilateral assistance to the region. Contributions towards spatial planning sectors have been part of development initiatives facilitated by bilateral agencies, including the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), throughout this period. However, the focus on spatial planning sectors has moved between explicit focus and being implicitly incorporated within broader conceptual frameworks. Although global development cooperation has been shown to impact spatial planning trajectories in Africa, the implications thereof have not received much attention, underscoring the necessity for the examination of the development discourses of these agencies, including development priorities and the narrative on African futures. The study seeks to contribute to this by unpacking how Swedish development cooperation strategies frame spatial planning in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study investigates the textual, discursive, and sociocultural dimensions of these strategies, focusing on the spatial planning priorities, the concerns and solutions therein, the Swedish narratives on Africa, and the portrayal of the role of Sweden in development cooperation. The study identifies five key spatial planning priorities in the Swedish development cooperation strategies with the region: spatial justice, economic growth, environmental sustainability, infrastructure development, and democratic governance. These themes reflect a depiction of Sub-Saharan Africa through the narratives of “African deficiency” and of “African opportunity”, which in turn serves to legitimise solutions such as infrastructural development and capacity-building.The study identifies the portrayal of Sweden's position in enacting spatial planning solutions as "the good state," in which Sweden positions itself as a promoter of a normative framework for development, "the expert," where Sweden leverages its knowledge and experience to provide guidance and best-practice principles, and "the innovator" in which Sweden emphasises its role in introducing innovative solutions and technologies to address spatial planning challenges. Through an analysis of Sweden’s development cooperation strategies for the region, the study unpacks the relationship between North-South development discourses and Sub-Saharan spatial realities and puts forth that there is a need for alternative approaches to development in global cooperation. The study underscores the prioritisation of contextual knowledge, active engagement with local realities, and the promotion of knowledge exchange as principles for the formulation of spatial planning priorities within Swedish development cooperation strategies with Sub-Saharan Africa.