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The ongoing drone proliferation throughout Africa has received little . However, African drone proliferation has become a vehicle for the production and distribution of forms of legitimacy and of resources that have implications for drone proliferation both within and outside Africa. More specifically, the percep颅tion of Africa as being in need of external drone intervention dovetails with the drone industry鈥檚 efforts to identify and promote good uses for drones 鈥� efforts that are central to increasing the legitimacy of drones in the eyes of the Global North. This blog post discusses the ways in which drones are presented as a means of 鈥渓eapfrogging鈥� past Africa鈥檚 development problems.

Leapfrogging refers to the stages of investment or capability building through which countries were previously required to pass in order to achieve a particular level of economic development; the notion is embedded in the that African countries with poor road infrastructure could 鈥渓eapfrog right from donkeys to drones鈥�. As part of 鈥溾��, there have been several proposals to provide rural Africa with networks of humanitarian cargo drones. Several commercial players have described plans for cargo drones that will initially engage in humanitarian aid, but that will then transition to purely commercial activities, as they undergo further development and become able to carry more cargo. For example, Jonathan Ledgard, director of Afrotech, that the payloads carried by the first cargo drones will probably be 鈥渦nits of blood to keep alive children who otherwise would perish. But they will quickly evolve into larger and heavier craft until they can carry 20 kilos or more over distances of several hundred kilometers.鈥� Ledgard has also that 鈥渙ne day, perhaps 40 percent of African trade could travel by drones. . . . That would boost economies and link cities, tribes and countries in lucrative trading channels.鈥�

Several features of the leapfrogging discourse are worth analyzing: first, leapfrogging is generally linked to the objective of rapid economic growth. In an environment where the absence of functioning markets is defined as one of the principal obstacles to such growth, some view drones as a means of overcoming 鈥�.鈥�

Second, the continent鈥檚 lack of infrastructure 鈥� including power lines, airspace control, and commercial flights 鈥� is attractive to the drone industry: African airspace has been described as 鈥�.鈥� From this perspective, it is not drones but the absence of infrastructure that is the utopian factor. Under the heading 鈥溾��, Andreas Raptopoulos, the founder and chief executive officer of Matternet, a drone start-up, has suggested that 鈥渇ollowing the lead of road systems in the West is a nearly impossible task for the African continent.鈥� Similarly, in an article titled 鈥溾��, Simon Johnson, the director of the Flying Donkey Challenge (a planned race between cargo drones around Mount Kenya), observes that 鈥渢here鈥檚 incredible growth happening there, but not a lot of infrastructure. Roads just can鈥檛 be built fast enough. So why not use flying robots instead?鈥�

A third component of the leapfrogging discourse is the argument that in the African context, future infrastructure projects would be irresponsible: Raptopoulos has observed, for example, that not building roads means avoiding a 鈥溾��. And according to Jonathan Ledgard, drone highways entail 鈥�

But will drones effectively eliminate obstacles to development? The leapfrogging discourse, with its images of 鈥渃onnecting Africa鈥�, is geared towards enhancing the appeal of drones. These arguments should be subjected to more critical scrutiny 鈥� not least because the implementation of such leapfrogging strategies has distributive consequences, particularly in relation to procurement and funding for research and development. For example, in light of the ongoing struggle to secure access to health care and education for broad swaths of the African population, what does it mean, from an ethical perspective, to take seriously the argument (or even to make the argument) that the ambition to build roads should be forgone in favor of building drone highways?

Read also Kristin B. Sandvik鈥檚 blog post on IntLawGrrls: