Working Paper

Trade, Industry and Technology Development in Sub Saharan Africa: Policies, Response and Effects

“This paper focuses on the inter-relationships among trade, industrialization and technological development in the context of the overall process of economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. The paper pays particular attention to policies intended to enhance these inter-relationships, enterprise-level responses to these policies and their effects. It brings out some pertinent differences and similarities in prevailing conditions in Asia and Africa, provides an account of the divergent development experiences in the two regions in the area of trade, industry and technological development, and addresses relevant institutional arrangements and organizational characteristics. Section 2 offers a brief review of the development and industrialization experience of the SSA
region. Section 3 looks at SSA’s development strategy, from an evolutionary perspective,
paying special attention to the shifting relationship between the public and private sectors. Section 4 examines the presence and characteristics of networking, linkages and subcontracting and Section 5 turns its attention to policy design and implementation mechanisms where various
practical elements of reforms and other interactions are discussed. Section 6 concludes.”