Africa looks to the Orient for lessons
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China Daily, September 9, 2013
Generally speaking, there is no argument - Africa needs industrialization to provide jobs, reduce poverty and improve economies. Also, it needs overseas investment for this to happen and China is in a good position to provide it.
But when it comes to details and practicalities, there is a great deal of debate over how this can be done, or even whether it can be done at all.
There are 55 recognized countries in Africa, all differing from each other in many respects. Most may share the same problems and general wish for investment and industrialization to overcome them, but not the capabilities, conditions, cohesion or consensus needed to do so.
China is currently involved one way or another in the development of more than 50 African nations. Without doubt it can be said to be at the heart of the issue over the industrialization of the continent.
"Massive industrialization based on commodities in Africa is imperative, possible, and beneficial," states the 2013 edition of the Economic Report on Africa, co-authored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union, released earlier this year.
The report, Making the Most of Africa's Commodities: Industrialization for Growth, Jobs and Economic Transformation, argues that Africa needs to frame specific policies for commodity-based industrialization for each country to ensure initiatives that foster linked development and to speed up that process through leveraging the continent's abundant resources and high commodity prices.
Individually and collectively, African countries must embark on a "bold transformation" toward a commodity-based industrialization strategy to allow the continent to take charge of its own development, the report says, which is necessary if African countries are to be able to address youth unemployment, poverty and gender disparities, among other challenges.
The report suggests African countries should form industrial and other development policies to promote value-added production and reduce dependence on producing and exporting unprocessed commodities.
Rick Rowden, a development consultant for the UN Conference on Trade and Development, says despite the important gains in services industries and per capita incomes, Africa is still not rising and services alone will not create enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed youth in Africa's growing urban areas.
"Instead, steps must be taken to revise WTO agreements, and the many trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties currently being negotiated, so that Africa has the freedom to adopt the industrial policies it needs in order to make genuine progress," he writes in Foreign Policy magazine.
China is at the forefront in arranging bilateral investment and development agreements with African nations, most of whom are impressed and encouraged by China's own spectacular economic rise.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)