BOOK: AFRICA’S INDUSTRIALISATION & PROSPERITY
AUTHOR: DAVID SSEPPUUYA
PP: 386 PAGES
AVAILABLE AT ALL MAJOR BOOKSHOPS
A few years ago people begun to seat up and take notice of
Africa. Previously seen as a basket case bedevilled by poverty, disease and
war, the coincidence of improving economic management, high commodity prices
and the and a promised demographic dividend as the continent’s young population
come of age, led to the birth of the tag line “Africa rising”.
The initial optimism has died down as deeper issues
surrounding the continent’s politics and structural deficiencies in the economy,
have shown that while there is still cause for optimism, the initial positivity
may have been overdone.
It is against this background that journalist David
Sseppuuya wrote this book, a credible attempt to see the continent for what it
is, how it got here and what its future prospects are.
"The constant theme throughout the book is the huge deficiencies the continent suffers, be it from capital mobilisation or human resource capacity or even in land issues, be it convoluted tenure systems or the declining fertility or the general inefficiency of its use....
Sseppuuya, while referring to an admirable bibliography as
wide in scope as it is deep, draws parallels and divergencies with other
development models, coming quickly to the conclusion that industrialisation –
the adding of value to our natural endowments, is the future.
For students of development this is an obvious conclusion and
while the continent’s leaders have talked about it, there seems to have been a
disconnect between the appreciation and the implementation of
industrialisation.
Sseppuuya has some suggestions of why this is so, not least
because politicians since independence have placed too much emphasis – in his
view, on promoting agriculture.
The author suggests that this focus has seen the continent,
stuck in recurring loop as supplier of raw materials to more advanced
economies, led to deteriorating terms of trade and a perpetuation of rural
poverty.
While in other parts he acknowledges the south East Asian
nations’ evolution from agriculture to light industry to heavy industry and now
to services, and how by raising agricultural productivity they became food self-sufficient
but also saved critical hard currency, that would have gone to food
importation, for Africa he argues that we need not follow the same cycle.
He argues that returns from agriculture are not enough to
lift the millions of Africans out of poverty nor vault the continent into a 21st
century economy. Focussing on agriculture will only serve to maintain the
continent’s rural texture, counterproductive because urbanisation has been a
major driver of development wherever it has happened.
He points to the fact that while up to 70 percent of people
derive a livelihood from the land but only account for only 30 percent of
economic output, as an indication that it is an “economic dead end”.
Students of development will most likely disagree with
Sseppuuya’s views on agriculture and may even see this as the major shortcoming
of the book, but it is only a chapter in the book and there is much else to commend
about the book.
His expose of what ails our neighbour the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), examination of the short coming of the Structural
Adjustment Programs of the 1980s and the inadequacies of our education system
alone are worth the books steep cover price of sh70,000.
He draws important linkages between the major era’s of
Africa’s existence—the slave trade, colonialism and post-independence. This
back and forth treatment of the subject, with easy to read anecdotal evidence
to support his findings makes the book an enjoyable read by anyone with half an
interest in understanding the continent.
Sseppuuya, who has consulted with the World Bank in Tanzania
and Uganda and done work with Bank of Uganda, has been privy to how the people
at the center of driving the continent’s agenda think and work, liberally peppering
the text with some of these insights.
"As a citizen of the continent, having lived through Uganda’s most harrowing times and using the testimony of the everyday man, he then draws a bridge between the theory and its very real implications. The conclusion oftentimes is that the prescriptions have delivered results so wide off the mark as to wonder about the real motives of development set....
Many people have tackled this very subject and Sseppuuya’s extensive
reference to studies from as far back as the 19th century to the
present lends the book a gravitas that is hard to ignore. It is a useful
addition to the discussion on development and will serve as useful rallying
call for us to at least learn from our history.
