Urban policies mobility from China to Africa: case study of Ethiopia

This paper conceptualizes China’s urban policy model and examines its transfer within China–Africa cooperation, using Ethiopia’s Special Economic Zones policy as a case study. Employing policy ethnography and semi-structured interviews, this study investigates how Chinese urban policies are reinterpreted and restructured within African institutional and social contexts. This study highlights that China’s urban policy export is closely tied to its diverse infrastructure and industrial engagements in Africa. Rather than a fixed blueprint, the policy model constitutes a loosely assembled set of heterogeneous elements centered on the overarching narrative of integrating industrialization with urbanization. Policy transfer is not a linear process; rather, it involves fragmented diffusion, selective adoption, and scalar transformations. African policymakers play a pivotal role in shaping these dynamics, actively negotiating and reconfiguring policies to fit local governance frameworks. In the case of Ethiopia, the reception of China’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) model has been marked by creative reinterpretations that drive adaptive institutional innovations, embedding SEZs within broader urban governance structures. This research contributes to the scholarship on urban policy mobility by emphasizing how China–Africa urban development policies are co-produced through transnational interactions and localized adaptations, challenging conventional top-down narratives of policy transfer.