RETHINKING AFRICAN PATHS TO INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
The Rethinking African Paths to Industrial Development (RAPID) programme team aim to reshape public debates on development strategies.
ABOUT RAPID
At RAPID, the team are dedicated to reframing the way governments, development institutions, businesspeople and the general public think about industrialisation. Their framework emphasises the development of productive capabilities among developing country firms and workers. This requires purposeful actions by governments to foster domestic private sector capabilities and bring in foreign direct investment.
WHY INDUSTRIALISATION?
Industrialization was essential to the development trajectories of today’s high-income countries The challenge for developing countries is to reproduce this experience under changed global conditions, while avoiding past mistakes.
Industrial policy must have structural transformation as its guiding principle. This requires coming up with a suitable institutional framework that combines both horizontal and vertical policy interventions to help improve domestic firms’ capabilities.
