Africa’s Transformation through Industrial Development and Implementing Agenda 2063

The objective of the event is to deepen thoughts on industrial development strategy for Africa’s Economic Transformation, as emphasized in Africa’s Agenda 2063. The event also aims to launch “Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa,” a publication from the joint research by JICA Research Institute and Columbia University, to be published this September.

Partners

Background of the Event

• Africa has been sustaining growth over the decade, overwhelming the financial crisis in the late 2000’s. As the falling price of oil and other commodities since last year slows down its growth, Africa faces some challenges and opportunities to strengthen its resilience to external shocks.
• As well as the end of the commodity price booming, Africa has been facing various economic challenges, such as; accelerating the pace of poverty reduction, narrowing the income gap, creating decent jobs especially for youth, building infrastructure, promoting regional integration, etc. Among them, industrialization is rapidly arising to be highlighted as an important challenge for the comings decades of Africa and the developing world, such as Agenda 2063 and Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development.
• To mitigate external economic shocks as recently happened and to accelerate the pace of poverty reduction and narrow the income gap, Africa needs economic diversification through promoting industrial sector. Africa also needs to increase labor productivity through shifting its labor from substantive agriculture and informal service sector to more productive sectors such as manufacturing.
• On the other hand, the African Union’s adopting of Agenda 2063 and its First 10-Year Implementation Plan as well as the United Nation’s adoption of Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development this year are excellent opportunities for Africa to renew the commitments towards realizing people-centered, inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
• JICA has been collaborating with Prof Joseph Stiglitz and his team, Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), to promote policy research on industrial policy in Africa. In parallel, JICA also has been supporting the Ethiopian Government‘s efforts for the Industrial Policy Dialogue and the Kaizen Project together with Japanese expert teams. More broadly, JICA promotes human resource development efforts for industry and business in Africa through supporting TICAD Human Resource Development Centers, Abe Initiative, etc., to increase productivity and promote innovation.
• As it has been announced that the first TICAD Summit in Africa will be held in Kenya in 2016 and the preparation for TICAD VI has now been launched, The Government of Japan, JICA, NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, United Nations Development Progranmme (UNDP), United Nations Office of Special Advisor on Africa (UNOSAA), the World Bank and Columbia University organize a TICAD VI Pre-event under the title of “Afirca’s Transformation through Industrial Development and Implementing Agenda 2063” at the margin of the UN General Assembly 2015. This event would be also an opportunity to launch the JICA-Columbia University joint research outcome on “Industrial Policy and Economic Transformation in Africa” to be published this September 2015 by the Columbia University Press.