{"id":6401,"date":"2019-11-06T09:57:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T06:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6401"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","slug":"african-countries-cant-industrialize-yes-they-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/06\/african-countries-cant-industrialize-yes-they-can\/","title":{"rendered":"African Countries Can\u2019t Industrialize? Yes, They Can"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Wim Naud\u00e9 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narratives are essential. Humans are, after all, \u201chelpless story\u00a0junkies<\/a>\u201d. Business and economic success depend much more than is commonly acknowledged in getting the narrative right. And if there is a narrative where getting it right or wrong matters hugely, it is the narrative about Africa\u2019s industrial development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa is the poorest<\/a> continent. It is likely to be the most\naffected by climate <\/a>change. It\nis the continent where terrorist<\/a> groups\nare spreading fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, African industrialization\nis essential. Unfortunately, the dominant narrative is that Africa has\nbeen de-industrializing<\/a>, even prematurely<\/a>. In this\nnarrative, it is also questioned whether Africa can ever industrialize. African\ncountries have even been advised not to try<\/a>. The World\nBank\u2019s \u201cTrouble in\nthe Making\u201d<\/a> report concludes that manufacturing is becoming less\nrelevant for low-income countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, a very different\nnarrative is possible. In a recent paper<\/a>, I argue\nthat Africa can industrialise because of three factors. These are \u201cbrilliant<\/a>\u201d new\ntechnologies enabling digitisation, smart materials and 3D-printing; a\nmore vibrant<\/a> entrepreneurship\nscene; and Africa\u2019s growing middle class<\/a> (as measured<\/a> by the\nshare of households that earn between $11 and $110 per person per day), which\nsupports the continent\u2019s first generation of indigenous tech-entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider therefore the following narrative<\/a>: More\nthan 300<\/a> digital\nplatforms, mostly indigenous, are operating across the continent. There are\nalso more than 400<\/a> high-tech\nhubs, and more are being added. In addition, venture capital funding into\nAfrican tech start-ups increased ten-fold <\/a>between 2012\nand 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, manufacturing has more than doubled in size in real terms since 1980. And since 2000, manufacturing value-added has grown at more than 4% a year. That is double the average between 1980 and 2000 (numbers from the\u00a0Expanded<\/a>\u00a0African Sector Database).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, total employment in manufacturing in 18 of the largest African economies (for which there is data) grew from roughly 9 million in 2004 to more than 17 million by 2014. That is an 83% increase in ten years. The proportion of labour in manufacturing for Africa as a region grew from roughly 5% in the 1970s to almost 10% by 2008\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Wim Naud\u00e9 Narratives are essential. Humans are, after all, \u201chelpless story\u00a0junkies\u201d. Business and economic success depend much more than is commonly acknowledged in getting the narrative right. And if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}