Meeting the challenge of industrialization will need new thinking both in Africa and among its development partners. Put bluntly, Africa will not succeed in industrializing if the conventional wisdom offered by the international aid community to African governments continues to define their public policies to spur industrial development. One of the unifying themes in the eight SSA country case studies in this volume is the predominant role of donor-driven investment climate reforms. In our view while investment
climate reforms are necessary, they need to be re-prioritized and refocused. Urgent action is needed to address Africa’s growing infrastructure and skills gap with the rest of the world.
For most African countries, investment climate reforms alone are unlikely to be enough to overcome the advantages of the world’s existing industrial locations.