Africa’s industrialisation should not be measured only by how much a factory produces, but by what becomes possible because the factory exists. A factory can generate output, jobs and exports without fundamentally changing the productive structure around it. The deeper form of industrialisation begins when the knowledge, skills, technologies, suppliers and capabilities created by one investment can move beyond it, into new firms, new sectors and new markets. This changes the question of value addition. The objective is not simply to process more of Africa’s commodities before they leave the continent. It is to ensure that each investment leaves behind capabilities that can be reused, recombined and extended into activities that did not exist before. This is where regional integration becomes critical. A regional market is not merely a larger market for finished goods. It is a larger field in which capabilities can circulate, specialised suppliers can emerge, technologies can be adapted and production networks can deepen. The real measure of industrialisation, therefore, is not only what an economy produces today, but what it becomes capable of producing tomorrow. A factory transforms a commodity. Industrial capacity transforms the possibilities of an economy. Read on the Africa at LSE blog of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
