June 22, 2026

There are some journeys that begin long before the flight departs. At first glance, the road to Clermont-Ferrand in the Alps of central France looked straightforward enough: travel from Cape Town to Dakar for a conference and meetings, a visit to Gorée Island, onward to Paris for discussions at the headquarters of a major development finance institution, and then to Clermont-Ferrand for a conference where I would present my paper titled Market Shaping for a Just Energy Transition, and moderate a panel on subnational and regional development finance. On paper, it was simply a sequence of flights, hotels, meetings and presentations. In reality, the road itself became part of the argument.