Learning to Compete seeks to answer a seemingly simple but puzzling question: why is there so little industry in Africa?
Industry—including modern services and agro-industry—is often the key to job creation, poverty reduction, and growth. Most Asian economies began their industrialization processes with initial conditions quite similar to many African countries today, yet, while Asia had explosive industrial growth, Africa’s shares of global manufacturing value added and exports have fallen. To sustain growth Africa must learn to compete in global markets.
Team
Focal point: Finn Tarp, John Page
Assistant: Lisa Winkler
Communications: Annett Victorero
In collaboration with
Filter by...
Blog
The ins and outs of African industrialization: UNU-WIDER provides open access to a wealth of informationThe question ‘why is there so little industrialization in Africa?’ has been a key focus of UNU-WIDER researchers and research partners for the last...
Blog
Made in Africa – the future of production on the continentThe international community has a new set of development goals. They reflect Africa’s aspirations much more closely than the Millennium Development...
Blog
Made in Africa - Learning to Compete in Industry: Policy proposalsOne of the strengths of the new UNU-WIDER and Brookings book Made in Africa is that, in the best sense of the word, its proposals are debatable. It...
Blog
Getting a high five - Advancing Africa’s transformative agendaAt his swearing in, the new African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina set out an agenda for the economic transformation of the continent...
Blog
Commodities, industry, and the African Growth MiracleThe 2016 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank occur during uncertain times for the “African Growth Miracle.” After...
Blog
Understanding FDI spillover mechanismsForeign direct investment (FDI) has been praised as an important development tool, especially for countries at low levels of industrial development...
Blog
Industrial clusters: Who benefits?Manufacturing production in both developed and developing economies tends to be highly geographically concentrated in cities and industrial clusters...
Context
Main subject
Theme: Past, 2010-11