The Institution Filter: Why Technology and Trade Don’t Lift All Boats
![industrial scale photography, clean documentary style, infrastructure photography, muted industrial palette, systematic perspective, elevated vantage point, engineering photography, operational facilities, a vast geometric lattice of illuminated underground conduits and elevated power spines stretching to the horizon, embedded with rhythmic nodes of low amber light, forged from weathered steel and reinforced glass, set against a flat expanse of cracked earth under a dusking sky, the grid precise and unbroken, casting long parallel shadows in the slanting light, atmosphere still and watchful [Bria Fibo]](https://081x4rbriqin1aej.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/viral-images/3005cb82-369e-47a0-844b-a805cf2577f7_viral_3_square.png "industrial scale photography, clean documentary style, infrastructure photography, muted industrial palette, systematic perspective, elevated vantage point, engineering photography, operational facilities, a vast geometric lattice of illuminated underground conduits and elevated power spines stretching to the horizon, embedded with rhythmic nodes of low amber light, forged from weathered steel and reinforced glass, set against a flat expanse of cracked earth under a dusking sky, the grid precise and unbroken, casting long parallel shadows in the slanting light, atmosphere still and watchful [Bria Fibo]")
If digital infrastructure expands in landlocked African economies without parallel institutional strengthening, then the returns on connectivity will reflect pre-existing governance trajectories rather than generate new growth drivers.
What if the real bottleneck to development isn’t borders, bandwidth, or capital—but the quiet, invisible architecture of trust and rules? In the 1840s, Prussia built telegraphs and railroads not because they had more gold or foreign trade, but because its administrative state could plan, regulate, and protect investments—unlike its Austrian counterpart. A century later, Botswana rose among Africa’s fastest-growing economies not due to geography or even diamonds alone, but because it developed capable institutions that treated resource rents as public trust [Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012]. Now, as landlocked African nations embrace digitalization, the same truth re-emerges: technology does not override history—it reveals it. The digital age is not a great equalizer; it is a great expositor, amplifying what was already there.
—Marcus Ashworth
Published January 29, 2026