Bennu: Africa innovating itself out of underdevelopment

ABSTRACT

This article is a direct challenge to the established view reflected in the World Bank's Berg report, that structural adjustment programmes and the markets alone will resolve Africa's underdevelopment challenges. This article completely accepts that science and technology lead to products and services that create efficiency, productivity and wealth. It accepts different dynasties of industrialisation from land use (agriculture and mining), labour-intensive activities, heavy machinery, assembly lines, branding, information technology and intellectual property, but shows how – in the current global paradigm – this has led to an anomaly: while development aid flows from more industrialised to less industrialised countries, larger sums of global investment capital leave poorer countries for richer countries in search of higher returns. Having accepted the ‘returns-seeking’ nature of capital, a strategy is proposed for Africa to engage with this reality. In contrast with the Berg view, it is argued that the public sector is a key stakeholder in the developmental process. As has been put forward by Thabo Mbeki, several African countries exhibit ‘two nations’ characteristics. If this is true, all seven dynasties of industrialisation can be simultaneously developed through interventionist government, which could not happen though markets alone. A direct policy and strategy positioning in technology-related sectors that support increasing returns should be developed. Economic development bodies should have scientific and technological people to ensure technological focus in development strategies.The article demonstrates that a different value paradigm is needed. Large numbers of poor people can provide markets for goods that can yield returns for capital that are similar to markets of small numbers of rich people. A shift in the development model from Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to Public Entrepreneur Private Partnerships (PEPP) is suggested to maximise employment through sustainable entrepreneurship. Through spearheaded emerging technologies such as information convergence technologies, cellular technologies such as mobile banking, resource management and alternate energy, Africans can create output that attracts global investment capital – and not only aid. This article explores how, through investment in activities that generate increasing rather than decreasing returns, Africa will innovate its way out of what appears to be a stubborn history of underdevelopment.

Keywords:

• Bennu economics
• Berg report
• development
• industrialisation
• investment capital
• science and technology
• Structural Adjustment Programmes
• two-nations
• underdevelopment
• value dynasties