ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) experts have called for investing heavily in infrastructure development and strengthening global partnerships to speed up industrialization and economic transformation in Africa.
The appeal came Monday at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, during the opening of Africa Industrialization Week 2024 themed "Leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Green Industrialization, and Intellectual Property for Africa's Transformation."
Batanai Clemence Chikwene, program manager at the African Trade Policy Center within the UN Economic Commission for Africa, said Africa needs to invest more in the infrastructure and energy sector to accelerate its advancement toward industrialization.
"Africa needs to invest highly in basic infrastructure development mainly on roads, airports, energy as well as on education sectors to be able to realize fast industrialization and economic transformations," Chikwene told Xinhua in an interview.
He said the industrial sector in Africa has been characterized by sluggish development attributable largely to a number of supply-side constraints, including the lack of the required industrial capacities, inadequate entrepreneurship skills, and the colonial legacy that requires them to export unprocessed products to foreign markets.
"Africa is not going to be able to industrialize on its own. It will need a market within the continent and abroad, and it needs to collaborate with partners that understand the circumstances of the continent and that provide assistance," he said.
Komi Tsowou, United Nations Development Program regional adviser on the African Continental Free Trade Area, said that Africa needs to focus on intra-African value chain integration and reduce export dependency on unprocessed goods and natural resources to speed up its industrialization.
"There is also an urgent need to generate skills, stimulate productivity, promote investment, provide infrastructure and transport facilities, upgrade enterprise operations, transfer technology, reduce the costs of doing business and introduce appropriate standards to enable products to compete in international markets," Tsowou said.
Peter Kuria, an AU expert on small and medium enterprises and special economic zones, said that there is an urgency to refocus on national industrial plans, accelerate regional value chain development, generate skills, stimulate productivity, and support enterprise operations to speed up Africa's industrialization.
"Africa has enough resources, and the policy needs to be inward looking where we are supporting the development of local industries. Africa needs skills that are appropriate to its industrial needs, and there should be better collaboration between its industries and learning institutions to industrialize the continent," said Kuria, noting that inaccurate mindset, policy alignment, and resource allocation remain a challenge for Africa's advancement toward industrialization. ■
