147 Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 8 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3952-0.ch008 ABSTRACT This chapter compares the African and Chinese crowdfunding markets with a view to draw lessons from the two markets. China has a longer experience than Africa in the crowdfunding activities; crowdfund- ing processes in the country may not be directly applicable to the African states, but there are lessons that can be learnt by individual or group of African or Asian governments. These differing experiences identified can serve as a practical guide for urban development actors longing for sustainable funding for important urban development projects. In order to gather this data, the authors conducted a desktop review of literature, both grey and published being work on crowdfunding in Africa and China. Data collected were analysed using thematic content analysis. The chapter argues that the low adoption of crowdfunding by Africa can be attributed to a number of factors, including national regulatory envi- ronments that are not conducive for crowdfunding of equity and debt, and unconducive technological environments where e-commerce is not widely utilised. INTRODUCTION The future growth of Africa is not so dissimilar from that of Asia, especially China (Koch and Siering, 2015; Arvanitis, 2015). The urbanization of China represents the greatest demographic change witnessed in late 20th and early 21st century. Similarly, Africa’s urbanization will be the largest shifts for the rest of this 21 st century (Arvanitis, 2015). Given that Chinese context resemble the African context, there are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from China’s growth initiatives to map Africa’s growth trajectory. The potential for a demographic dividend is clear as witnessed from China. By 2050, the greater population A Comparative Analysis of Africa and Chinese Crowdfunding Markets Innocent Chirisa University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Liaison Mukarwi Uinversity of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe