Crying out for an industrialised economy

Prof Christopher Chetsanga
The current state of Africa’s underdevelopment and continuing state of indigenous poverty are self-inflicted. Please take note of the following endowments of Africa.
Africa has 50 percent of the world’s gold, most of the world’s diamonds and chromium, 90 percent of the world’s cobalt, 65 percent of the world’s manganese, 40 percent of the world’s potential hydroelectric power, and an abundance of many other natural resources.

All these endowments place Africans in the lucky zone of potentially being Mother Earth’s wealthiest national groups.

Would you believe that, in spite of all these endowments, Africa ranks as the poorest continent in the world?

The UN Development Index shows that 21 of Africa’s 53 countries are among the 25 least developed countries in the world, and that the world’s 10 poorest countries are in Africa.

And most disturbing is the revelation made by the World Corruption Perception Index that over 50 percent of the world’s 25 most corrupt countries are in Africa.

I wonder how Zimbabwe ranks in this sector of human behaviour.

There is a crying need for industrialisation in Africa. Almost all African countries, except the colonially industrialised South Africa, have not given the industrialisation process the high priority that it deserves.

It is important to inaugurate a national vision for industrialisation.

The execution and implementation of industrialisation first requires the use of a consultation platform where an industrialisation policy dialogue is held to discuss strategies for the setting of priority goal posts.

These discussions will include identifying all the instruments and funding levels that will be needed for the implementation of the target projects.

An important strategy for industrialisation involves the setting aside of an appropriate budget for training manpower in the areas of the relevant science, technology, innovation and product development. Such funding enables universities to train the needed categories of experts who can engage in the prioritised national research projects for industrialisation.

Universities can collaborate with national researches centres to engage in value addition to a nation’s commodities.

Zimbabwe has established the well-known Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC), which could collaborate with some of Zimbabwe’s 14 universities using the industrialisation model of Malaysia and South Korea.

These two countries have effectively used their research centres jointly with their universities to springboard their industrialisation.

The science and technology knowledge generated by universities and research centres has inexhaustible intellectual power which, when transformed to a skills knowledge of value addition to make new products, can trigger wealth creation.

Technology is well-known as a powerful tool for economic development and poverty alleviation.

Economic changes occur when technological knowledge is transformed to goods and services.

An efficient provision of technical higher education when accompanied by the growth of a country’s successful industrial entrepreneurship, will give university graduates opportunities for applying their acquired skill capabilities.

In most industrialised countries, all the universities are competing to become leaders in knowledge generation so that they can become the effective technological patrons of the industrial enterprises in their home countries.

Higher education thus plays a pivotal role in the general uplifting of a society.

All the expertise capital that builds and sustains a country’s national economy, depends on the appropriateness and quality of the technical training offered by universities and other related institutions.

It is thus the scientific research expertise at universities boosting their technological innovation outputs, as well as the R&D outputs from a country’s research centres, that provide the feedstock for a country’s industrial enterprises.

For Zimbabwe, it will be the R&D outputs from our 14 universities, in synergy with R&D outputs from SIRDC, the Agricultural Research Centre, Health Research Laboratories, etc.

That will provide the technological space for our industrial enterprises.

Technology as the Tool for Industrialisation
Industrialisation when underpinned by science, technology and innovation (STI) is the only means for laying a firm foundation for economic development in today’s world.

Industrial enterprises are important economic empowerment instruments for society as they offer jobs that provide steady monthly incomes and other business ventures that alleviate the poverty rate that is plaguing our society.

In these industrial ventures, it is the tools of human intellect and ingenuity that are exploited in negotiating a nation’s trajectory to the developed state.

I would like to plead with all Zimbabwean policymakers, intelligentsia and citizenry at large that we make industrialization our number one national priority.

We already have most of the enabling tools at hand.

On the manpower requirement side, our universities are producing about 10 000 BA and BSc degree graduates in a wide range of fields each year, our technical colleges are producing hundreds of diplomats, etc.

On the infrastructure side, there are many S&T laboratories at our major universities, SIRDC, as well as agricultural and health research centres.

A number of our Zimbabwean S&T experts, presently in the Diaspora, have assured me that they would rush back home, if Zimbabwe launched industrialisation as its national priority.

Why industrialisation?
It is only the implementation of industrialisation that can enable us to attain a sustainable economic growth in this country.

Everyone is now aware that our considerable natural resource endowment has not by itself brought us the desired level of economic growth.

The current practice is to collect our raw minerals and agricultural products, load them onto a plane in Harare or on a ship in Beira,

which will export them to Europe, USA or Asia where they will be processed in those countries’ manufacturing factories.

The industrial processing of these raw materials in these importing countries provides job opportunities for their people. Thus our export packages have the dual content of providing factory raw materials for producing valuable end-products and jobs for factory workers in the importing countries.

Let’s look at the nature of benefit strategies that the importing countries have designed for themselves.

A large number of these importing countries have built large industrial plants that employ large numbers of their people and manufacture large quantities of end products which they sell at higher prices at home and at export markets to grow their economies.

I have visited very successfully industrialised countries like Japan and South Korea, and was greatly impressed by how they have built huge factories where they manufacture wide varieties of vehicles and electronic gadgetry, essentially all produced using imported raw materials (mostly from Africa).

All that these industrialised countries have done is to first decide on what end products they should target to manufacture , as well as the type and sourcing of the required raw materials.

They would then make arrangements to train a certain number of engineers, chemists, physicists, computer scientists, etc and to have some of them learn the specific technical skills relevant to the development of the targeted end products.

Some of their experts were trained in the USA and Europe.

They would make arrangements to provide the necessary infrastructure (buildings and equipment) for the project. Their policymakers would make sure that an appropriate level of funding is provided for the projects.

They would ask the technical experts to make the calculation of the amount of funding to be set aside in the budget.

As this will be taken as a serious national priority project, government would always ensure that an adequate amount of money is provided for these priority projects in the annual budget.

Walking the Industrialisation Talk
In most African countries, including Zimbabwe, one hears a lot of talk about the utility of value addition to raw materials.

One does not see national action plans being drawn up and implemented to walk the raw material beneficiation talk.

One does not hear about a national vision around which value addition industries are to be launched.

A major stumbling block appears to be a lack of a fundamental understanding of how to strategise for ways in which S&T can be exploited in ways of beneficiating raw materials to build industrial enterprises for the country.

There is a need for specific action plans which are followed by implementation.

Zimbabwe should similarly strategise for industrialisation.

The task can be kick started by selecting from among the local raw materials, the ones to be used in the different targeted industrialisation projects.

One would expect that the raw materials chosen for the industrialisation undertaking would involve the agricultural primary products and the raw minerals as these are the two sectors in which Zimbabwe has competitive advantages.

Among the agricultural commodities that could be considered for industrial exploitation are livestock, beef, milk, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane and gardening plants, to mention a few.

There is already a very promising agro-processing project in Chisumbanje where large quantities of ethanol are being made from sugar cane.

The ethanol can be added to petrol or diesel to make them 10 percent or 20 percent in ethanol and thereby help Zimbabwe to reduce the quantities of fuel imports.

We can learn a great deal from the Brazilian success in ethanol production and exploitation. The minerals to be considered for value addition are the platinum group of metals, diamonds, gold, lithium, iron, coal, among others.

The cutting and polishing of diamonds as a starting point can be used to finally produce jewellery which can be exported as a much more valuable product for revenue generation, leading to the growth of our country’s economy.

To be continued