Bissau
Bissau exhibits keystone dynamics: autonomous capital sector concentrates services, port, and investment while interior supplies raw cashews.
Bissau functions as Guinea-Bissau's keystone territory—an autonomous sector containing the capital city, the port, and the only significant concentration of services in a country where services are the engine of growth. While 80% of the workforce farms cashew, the growth comes from Bissau's service sector and the infrastructure investments flowing through the capital.
The source-sink dynamics are extreme: when 4.8% GDP growth in 2024 materialized from 'continued investment, governance reforms, and normalization of cashew nut exports,' the investment concentrated in Bissau, the governance reforms implemented in Bissau, and the export revenues collected through Bissau's port. The interior poverty triangle—Oio, Gabú, Bafata—supplies raw cashews; Bissau extracts the administrative and commercial fees.
The capital's political instability—coups, attempted coups, and governance crises—reflects the stakes of controlling this concentration. Government budget, aid flows, and the tiny formal sector all pass through Bissau. When the World Bank's 2024 report noted 'unpacking tax performance,' they meant Bissau's tax performance—the interior generates commodities, not taxable transactions. The city is both the solution (where growth happens) and the problem (where instability originates).