Industrialization for economic transformation and sustainable development in Southern Africa: addressing the gaps

Abstract

This document focuses on the Industrialization for economic transformation and sustainable development in Southern Africa: Addressing the gaps. This report re-examines the critical observations on Africa’s industrialization experience which were made in the Lagos Plan of Action in 1980, namely: the inadequacy of domestic markets as a basis for far-reaching industrialization under the import substitution industrialization (ISI) strategy in which African economies were found to be too small to sustain any meaningful industrialization; and technological dependence, particularly when this phenomenon undermined “learning by doing” and led to the inability or outright failure of African governments to bargain with foreign investors on matters of transfer of technology or provision of incentives that would spur technological advancement.