Building Economic Complexity in Africa

Despite the dominant theme over the last decade of ‘Africa Rising’, it is evident, with some hindsight of course, that much of the growth spurt in Africa has been on the back of the super-cycle in global commodity prices. Indeed, evidence shows that fourteen of the seventeen high-growth economies in Africa over the period 2008-2013 were resource-dependent economies (Bhorat & Tarp, 2016; Bhorat, Naidoo & Stanwix, 2016; Bhorat, Steenkamp & Rooney, 2015). The long-run growth and development literature does, in turn, retain the view that for a pattern of structural change and inclusive growth to assert itself in an economy, two key inter-linked ingredients are required. These are firstly, the move from a low productivity agricultural sector to a high productivity, export-oriented agricultural sector. Secondly, and with some overlap, the development of a dynamic high productivity manufacturing sector that is both employment- and export-intensive in nature. In both these channels the generation of employment opportunities for a large share of the population – in particular young people – drove this structural change.