AFRICA: CAN THE CONTINENT THIRD INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT DECADE DELIVER?

The African continent is one of the most talked about on the planet at the moment. As it is blessed with so many talents that is putting the continent on a global map, but with poor Industrialization and infrastructural development, it is still very far from reaching it peak as well as realising it full potential.

Like we all know, Industrialization and development go hand in hand. If you observe carefully, there is hardly a country in the world that has developed without building a strong manufacturing base. But for Africa – sometimes referred to as the continent of the future – the fruits of industrialization have often seemed just out of reach.

In 1980s, the continent’s development progress was put to a halt as war, disease, famine and poor governance overtook the political and social landscape. While a debt crisis, ill-designed structural adjustment policies and a crash in commodity prices ensured that Africa was left poorer at the end of the decade than at the beginning.

Such problems persisted for much of the 1990s and by the start of this millennium, the Economist magazine had dubbed Africa the “hopeless continent” as over two lost decades, collective efforts to push industrial development achieved little.

Read full details on IPS

Click on the floating icon on the right to subscribe. More so, please share, Follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to also like us on Facebook