Japan has an impressive history when it comes to aid, industrial policy, and infrastructure development, both as a country that saw meteoric development of its own, and as a country that has been one of the world's largest donors for decades. Looking towards an uncertain future in which...

Recent research highlights the considerable potential of industrial policy to support structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the importance of the state in industrial policy, this paper considers the implications for these discussions of recent work on state fragility. It argues...

Ethiopia represents an excellent case study of recent industrial policy experimentation in Africa. The country is well known for its successful promotion of the cut-flower industry through business-government co-ordination. What is less known is that at nearly the same time it was also using...

Africa should industrialize. Without structural change it cannot sustain recent growth. Economies with more diverse and sophisticated industrial sectors tend to grow faster. But since 1980 Africa has deindustrialized. The paper shows that between 1975 and 2005 the size, diversity and...

A sustainable pathway for Africa in the twenty-first century is laid out in the setting of the development of innovation capabilities and the capture of latecomer advantages. Africa has missed out on these possibilities in the twentieth century while seeing the East Asian countries advance....

In this scooping paper on the Tunisian economy we review the historical background of the economy which has undergone substantial structural change since independence in 1956. In particular we emphasize that past record of consistent growth has often masked inequality, regional disparities and...

This paper considers findings of studies analysing the development of a regional animal feed to poultry value chain in southern Africa (Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe). The southern African regional poultry value chain is underdeveloped, although important changes include investments...

Firms tend to cluster in close geographic proximity to each other to benefit from reduced transport costs, shared inputs, and productivity spillovers due to learning and technology transfers. Evidence from low-income countries suggests that such agglomeration economies may be substantial in...

Rapid population growth, urbanization, and income growth are triggering increased demand for high-value agricultural products across Southern Africa with scope for gains from trade and regional integration. We analyse the animal feed to poultry value chain in Zambia focusing on the industry...

This paper argues that new technologies - for communication, such as mobile phones and the internet, but also for manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and transport - have the potential to bridge many of the productivity gaps between sub-Saharan Africa and more advanced developing and developed...