The financial growth strategies of African and Asian nations have frequently been compared. With a US$ 251 per capita GDP in 1987, China was less developed than the majority of American nations. Uganda’s GDP per capita in US dollar terms that year was$ 392, Zambia’s$ 319 and Ghana’s$ 354. But now China has GDP per capita of$ 6, 091 and it is the country’s second largest economy. In Uganda, per capita GDP is still only US$ 964.
Both Asia and Africa have grown in population at comparable rates. With the projected population growth of nearly 1 billion more than the rest of the world in 2050, Africa is moving toward its fastest industrial shift to date. Earlier, China was in the best location: between 1978 and 2010, over 700 million folks moved to China’s places. Southeast Asia’s urbanization rates are remarkable, and many of these countries have not yet completed their metropolitan transformations.
There’s a change, also. Urbanization and industrialization have been combined in China and Southeast Asia, which has resulted in increased economic efficiency and reduced hunger. In Africa, the same style has never existed.
Much has been written to compare how the industrial change occurred, mainly in China, and what other parts of the world may take its cue from. The “best practices” identified include guidelines around specific financial areas, which have now proliferated across Africa.
Success in propagation has been limited, at best. It’s not always remembered that China’s accomplishment did not happen instantaneously. Not all areas benefited likewise, and the procedure was n’t straight.
But things did happen in China and some benefited. China’s economic changes over this time were strong, wide, and uneven, as noted by Chinese professor Yuen Yuen Ang in her book How China Left the Poverty Trap. What insights and ideas does that bring to Africa?
Africa: industrialization without industrialisation
No region has reached middle-income position without undergoing a well-managed process of urban change. Yet, although the urban change in many African nations is also quicker than China’s, it has mostly been decoupled from modernization. What the Egyptian experience is demonstrating is that when urbanization is not correlated with investments in open infrastructure and services, it may increase the drawbacks of thick living, such as the growth of informal settlements, congestion, and contagion, as most recently demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The majority of publications about and comparing industrialization in China and Africa originate in the northwest of the world. Less quantitative analysis has been done by urban African researchers.
This offers a teaching opportunity, through better understanding some of the particulars of what really happened. So, as an American industrial professor myself, I did some preliminary research on this a few years ago, along with co-authors. In” Is Africa study from the Chinese urbanization account,” we published our results. – a working papers.
Our summary was” Indeed”– but with caveats.
The second caveat is visible but needs to be clarified. China is a big state. Africa, by contrast, is a diverse continent with 54 states and even more diversity in its towns.
Learning should n’t necessarily imply adopting directly what China did, which was very context-specific. Instead, Africa’s scholars and policymakers now have the advantage of retrospective research, and they should use this to critically evaluate what worked and what did n’t, and why.
Probably most important, analytical understanding can and should get both ways.
Strong dive into China’s industrialization
Kudos to Hong Kong’s top-talent card program, which allows me to live and work in the area for two years, I now have the best opportunity to expand on this research and gain valuable experience from the Eastern region itself.
Almost a year into my remain, and through my expanding sites into the state, intellectual and private-sector circles in Hong Kong, China and beyond, my own knowledge of the industrialization processes around is growing.
It’s a crucial time to talk to people, particularly with China. Through its Belt-and-Road Initiative, China is immediately shaping many American cities via investments and plans. It’s obvious in motorways, railways and exclusive economic zones.
There has been growing concern about the volume, type, and amount of Taiwanese debt that some nations are absorbing, and under what circumstances. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend what might be influencing policies and funding decisions from the standpoint of China.
In a series of posts for The Conversation Africa, I may reflect on what I’m learning over the course of the upcoming season. Based on my research and my research on American urbanization over the past ten years, these will touch on some of the things I believe to be the most significant aspects of the Egyptian urban perspective. I’ll even draw on the writings of scientists who have studied and written about industrialization both in the Southeast Asian region and in China.
Topics will include funding of common equipment, urban planning, exclusive economic zones and intelligent cities, among others. These reflections may also serve as the foundation for a proper publishing that I intend to write.
I reject the notion of establishing “best techniques” and finding” a model” that can be instantly replicated. As noted, China’s industrial change, although it happened fast, did not happen overnight and was, like everywhere else in the globe, rooted in serious traditional, administrative, economic and cultural contexts.
I want to know and analyze precisely these peculiarities: the muddle of the plan process, how policies were adapted to the local context, challenges China faced, and opportunities and challenges that we can draw from decades of experience. These will guide “deposits” for what Yuen Yuen Ang, in an article, calls the” Non-Best Practice Bank of Knowledge“, with the emphasis on the fact that” remedies can come in many forms, even in methods that contradict American best techniques”.
Astrid R. N. Haas is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto.
This is the first of a series of articles in The Conversation Africa to examine the urbanization of Africa and learn from the experiences of other nations. It has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.