Africa’s Industrialization Debate: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

In the article, the author examines the debates that have permeated Africa's quest to catch-up with the more developed countries of the North. It is noteworthy that since independence, Africa's industrialization process seemed to be a state-centric affair. In other words, the state has been the central player in Africa's industrialization process. At independence, of course, many factors favored or called for state dominance as well as state-driven industrialization process. Yet a bad political culture, weak political and social institutions, poor leadership and bad governance seem to have contributed to this failure from within. However, the fact still remains that at the beginning of the 21 st century, African countries do hold a lot of potential in terms of human and material resources that would enable them compete favorably with the more industrialized countries of Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. External actors (the imperial power of Europe) were largely blamed for the historical underdevelopment of Africa. Further, the ideological divide that characterized the post-Second World era international system (1945-1990) may not have done any good to African development: Nuclear deterrence and the arms race of the Cold War fame; the wedge between the capitalist and socialist blocs, not only blurred Third World development but also bred many forms of poor governance especially in African countries-as super powers blatantly sought for ideological support from African Regimes and political elites without an iota of transparency and accountability. This state of affairs greatly retarded Africa's industrialization. This is because political populism and regime survival superseded economic development. Nonetheless, it may not be wholly prudent for one to blame African woes on international politics. Indeed right from the 1960s African countries continued to receive colossal sums of money in the form of official development assistance (ODA); as well as grants and technical assistance from international financial institution (IFIs)-particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund amongst other multilateral donor agencies. Similarly the same took place through bilateral donors, especially between leading super powers and former colonial powers in Africa. Two sets of arguments emerged from this state of affairs. The first argument was that African countries received donor funds and loans; and while a few exceptional ones used these funds for their intended used, others mismanaged them and this led to adverse economic effect in form of huge balance of payment deficits economic under-performance and of course a debt crisis. The second argument takes the position that the donor agencies among other multilateral and bilateral arrangements are driven by all and/or insincere motives. While donor agencies purported to assist Africa's process of industrialization through financial, logistical and technical aid; in actual sense, it was only a scheme to produce jobs for