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Industrialisation in West Africa—the Need for Sub-Regional Groupings within an Integrated Economic Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

K. M. Barbour
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Extract

In the years that have elapsed since the ending of colonial rule, the newly independent states of Africa have been understandably preoccupied with a general resolve to achieve rapid and sustained economic growth. Certain countries have attached especial importance to investment in agriculture, others have devoted high proportions of their resources to material infrastructure, to the exploitation of minerals, or to education and training; whatever the immediate policy pursued, however, there has been general unanimity that at the far end of the development process each African state hopes to possess a growing number of economically viable manufacturing industries.1 Apart from the material benefits that industrialisation can bring there is a general belief, as Pierre Moussa has put it, that ‘the factory chimney has mythical value; it expresses a people's success on earth, their ability to cope with the modern world’.2

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , October 1972 , pp. 357 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 357 note 1 U. N. E. C. A., Economic Conditions in Africa in Recent Years (Addis Ababa, 1968), p. 99.Google Scholar

Page 357 note 2 Quoted by Raigeard, M., ‘Préalables et limites de l'industrialisation en Afrique noire’, in Le Mois en Afrique (Paris), X, 1966, p. 36.Google Scholar

Page 357 note 3 Cf. Lampué, P., ‘Les Groupements d'états africains’, in Revue juridique etpolitique (Paris), XVIII, 1964, pp. 21–64Google Scholar; Anguilé, A. G. and David, J. E., L'Afrique sans frontières (Monaco, 1965)Google Scholar; and Plessz, N. G., Problems and Prospects of Economic Integration in West Africa (Montreal, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 358 note 1 Vinay, B., L'Afrique commerce avec l'Afrique (Paris, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 359 note 1 U. N. E. C. A., Industrial Growth in Africa (New York, 1963), especially p. 79,Google Scholar and Industrial Development in Africa (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

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Page 359 note 3 U. N. E. C. A., Soil Fertility and Fertilizers in West Africa (Bamako, 1964)Google Scholar, Iron and Steel and First Stage of Transportation (Bamako, 1964)Google Scholar, Basic Chemicals and Fertilizers (Bamako, 1964)Google Scholar, Textiles in West Africa (Bamako, 1964)Google Scholar, Prospects of the Cement Industry in West Africa (Bamako, 1964)Google Scholar, Development of Food Processing Industries in West Africa (Bamako, 1963)Google Scholar, and Co-ordinated Industrial Development in West Africa (Bamako, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 360 note 1 The Development of the Iron and Steel Industry in Africa, p. 45.

Page 360 note 2 U. N. E. C. A., The Textile Industries in the East Africa Sub-Region (Lusaka, 1965), pp. 42–74.Google Scholar

Page 360 note 3 Quoted in U. N. E. C. A., Economic Co-operation and Integration in Africa (New York, 1969), p.2.Google Scholar

Page 360 note 4 ‘New states are emerging in the historical process with geographical boundaries which, in most cases, are not best suited to the requirements of rapid economic growth. If such growth is to take place, concerted action and joint endeavours will be needed.… new economic links are to be forged.’ Ibid. pp. 2–3.

Page 361 note 1 E.g. U. N. E. C. A., Petroleum Industry in the East African Sub-Region (Lusaka, 1965), pp. 36–8.Google Scholar

Page 361 note 2 The Development of the Iron and Steel Industry in Africa, p. 48.

Page 361 note 3 Ibid. p. 59.

Page 362 note 1 Economic Co-operation and Integration in Africa, p. 4.

Page 362 note 2 E.g. at the conference convened to establish an Economic Community of West Africa; the Articles of Association were signed in Accra on 4 May 1967. See Brownlie, Ian (ed.), Basic Documents on African Affairs (Oxford, 1971), pp. 58–62.Google Scholar

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Page 368 note 1 As B. W. Hodder has recently demonstrated in ‘West Africa: growth and change in trade’, in Prothero, R. M. (ed.), A Geography of Africa (London, 1969), pp. 415–69.Google Scholar

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Page 371 note 1 Malet-Buisson, S., ‘Petrole et gaz en Afrique’, in Le Mois en Afrique, X, 1968, pp. 54–68.Google Scholar

Page 372 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin, Social and Political Series (Exeter), x, 2, 1968, p. 973.Google Scholar

Page 372 note 2 Robson, Peter, ‘Economic Integration in Equatorial Africa’, in Hazlewood, Arthur (ed.), African Integration and Disintegration (London, 1967), pp. 27–68.Google Scholar

Page 373 note 1 Ibid. p. 35.

Page 373 note 2 ‘Of the 30 firms taxed in this way in January 1965, 18 were in Congo, 6 in C.A.R., 6 in Chad. Their products include beer, sugar, tobacco, soap, aluminium ware in Congo; textiles and clothing, beer, shoes, cycles and aluminium ware in C.A.R.; beer, sugar, cycles, soap and radio receivers in Chad’ (ibid. p. 37). For a detailed account of Ia taxe unique, as operated in U.D.E.A.C., see Anguilé and David, op. cit.

Page 374 note 1 Biarnes, P., ‘Industrialisation et unite de l'ancienne Afrique noire française’, in Le Mois en Afrique, x, 1968, pp. 46–53.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 2 Robson, loc. cit. p. 60.

Page 374 note 3 See also Kalak, P., Central African Republic: a failure in decolonisation (London, 1971), pp. 165–6.Google Scholar

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Page 374 note 5 Annuaire de l'Udeac (Paris, 1968), p. 202.Google Scholar

Page 375 note 1 Arthur Hazlewood, ‘Problems of Integration among African States’, loc. cit. pp. 19–21.

Page 376 note 1 Cf. Anguilé and David, op. cit. p. 132.

Page 377 note 1 Green and Seidman, op. cit. pp. 242–5.

Page 377 note 2 Malet Buissson, loc. cit. pp. 66–7.

Page 378 note 1 This view is confirmed in a recent analysis presented to the fifth inter-regional seminar on development planning at Bangkok, September 1969, by C. Aquereburu: ‘Multi-national Regional Planning as a Strategy of Development in the Second Development Decade—with special reference to Africa’ (U.N.E.S.C.O., Paris, 1969), ISDP. 5/A/R/3a, mimeo.

Page 378 note 2 Ferroux, François, L'Economie des jeunes nations (Paris, 1962), pp. 138ff.Google Scholar

Page 380 note 1 Apart from the omission of Chad, now in U.D.E.A.C., and of Portuguese Guinée, this list corresponds closely to that suggested in 1963 in the preliminary report of the West African Industrial Co-ordination Mission, distributed by E.C.A. as document E/CN 14/INR/25. There is also some discussion of ‘immediate natural groupings’ by Ewing, A. F. in his Industry in Africa (London, 1968), p. 92,Google Scholar with a similar recognition of the need to associate Ghana with the states of the Conseil d'entente, i.e. Côte d'Ivoire, Haute Volta, Niger, Dahomey, and Togo.

Page 381 note 1 On the basis of shared currency and membership of the Conseil d'eatente, it might be considered wiser to put Niger and Dahomey in the Central Economic Union; there is reason to believe, however, that apart from tribal affinities both of these small states have distinct leanings towards closer association with their large Nigerian neighbour. A more critical issue is whether the Ivory Coast is yet ready to abandon her cosy and profitable relationship with France in order to collaborate with other African states; Berg, Elliot J., ‘The Economic Basis of Political Choice in French West Africa’, in The American Political Science Review (Menasha), LXIV, 1960, p. 405.Google Scholar In fact it may not be necessary to abandon the major features of the former, in order to enjoy the latter.

Page 382 note 1 Berg, loc. cit. p. 401.