The Appendix shows various indicators of the sizes, capacities, and indices of human development of virtually all African economies as of 2015, relative to the rest of the world. These indices include land areas, populations, national income and per capita incomes, infant mortality and life expectancy, and the development of education at various levels.
The small fragmented markets of most individual African economies can not support the establishment of capital goods industries. Unless established on regional basis, such industries would be underutilized in most individual African countries. Moreover, in many cases, technology designed for developed countries are not suited for African countries at present stages of development.
While the initial capital goods can be imported from the established industrial countries, reliance on importation should not be continued indefnitely. Development of domestic capital goods industries must be established so that over time the national economy will largely depend on domestic capital goods industries so as to ensure sustainable supplies of machinery and equipment, spare parts, and other inputs to its various sectors. Capacity utilization and further growth of the economy may be frustrated by constraints in the importing capacity of the economy for foreign inputs. Such constraints may arise from shortage of foreign exchange. For example, inability of a country to import may arise from uncertainty in the international market for its exports, rendering a country unable to import vital inputs for its economy. This may lead the economy to operate much below its full capacity. Even old machinery and equipment may not be replaced, leading the economy to stagnate or operate very ineffciently.
But if the capital goods were domestically manufactured, or at least made in the neighborhood, their acquisition may be easier as the currencies of the neighboring countries are easier to obtain than those of the farther away countries with hard currencies. In the absence of domestic capital goods or capital goods in the neighborhood, domestic savings cannot be converted into capital goods unless it is changed to a hard currency. For example, the small neighboring countries of South Africa can easily acquire their industrial and mining inputs from South Africa by using the South African rand even if they do not have suffcient dollars, euros, or yen. However, this is not the case for most African countries.
Regional integration would provide African countries with the opportunity to pool their markets and resources. By establishing these industries in Africa, technological progress will be internalized in Africa; in the long-run, this will introduce fexibility into African industry as technological progress will be internally generated and machinery and equipment designs will keep pace with the required changes in manufacturing as the structure of demand changes with development.
However, there are a few large African countries with large resources and potential domestic markets that can go a long way in establishing large manufacturing sectors from which industrialization can diffuse to the neighboring countries. Given the slower rate of regional integration in Africa, the few large single African political entities could be developed into major regional development poles from which industrialization can more easily diffuse to the rest of the continent.
Table 1.2 shows that there were seven African countries in 2015 that had populations of approximately 50 million and above. By 2030 and 2050, this number of countries will increase to ten and twenty-two respectively. However, these countries have different resource endowments. Some are arid, while others will soon be densely populated. Hence, they offer different potentials for individual self-sustaining industrialization. By 2050, Nigeria is projected to have the world’s fourth-largest population.
From the projected world population on Table 1.2, many African countries will have over forty million people each by 2050, which constitute a sizable domestic market. Educated and trained, such numbers of young people would constitute a large labor force. With equitable national development that wid ens their individual national markets, the countries with large natural resources could pursue viable industrialization programs, with substantial establishment of capital goods industries. While all African countries can pursue the strategy of commodity-based industrialization for raising general living conditions for the majority of the African population, manufacture of capital goods in Africa is a pre requisite for establishing self-sustained development in the continent. The commodity based industrialization will raise the general living conditions of the populations, greatly reducing unemployment and underemployment, poverty, and inequali ties as well as expanding the national markets for further industrialization. But they will need continuous importation of capital goods from afar, outside Africa. Availability of foreign exchange has always been a major impediment, limiting African imports from outside the continent.
Table 1.2 Projections of Africa’s population to 2050 (thousands)
No Country
Country
2015
2030
2050
0
World
7,349,472
8,500,966
2,478,000
00
Africa
1,186,000
1,679,000
1
Algeria
39,667
48,274
56,461
2
Angola
25,022
39,351
65,473
3
Burkina Faso
18,106
27,244
42,789
4
Cameroon
23,344
32,947
48,362
5
Côte d"Ivoire
22,702
32,143
48,797
6
Dem Rep. of Congo
77,267
120,304
195,277
7
Egypt
91,508
117,102
151,111
8
Ethiopia
99,391
138,297
188,455
9
Ghana
27,410
36,865
50,071
10
Kenya
46,050
65,412
95,505
11
Madagascar
24,235
35,960
55,294
12
Malawi
17,215
26,584
42,155
13
Mali
17,600
27,370
45,404
14
Morocco
34,378
39,787
43,696
15
Mozambique
27,978
41,437
65,544
16
Niger
19,899
35,966
72,238
17
Nigeria
182,202
262,599
398,508
18
South Africa
54,490
60,034
65,540
19
Sudn
40,235
56,443
80,284
20
Tanzania
53,470
82,927
137,136
21
Uganda
39,032
61,929
101,873
22
Zambia
16,212
25,313
49,975
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2015. World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision. New York, NY: United Nations.