New Pathways to Job Creation and Development in Africa: The Promise of Industries Without Smokestacks

Creating productive jobs for growing a labor force is both one of the world’s greatest challenges as well as one of its greatest economic opportunities, and one of the most consequential global megatrends. Nowhere is the job creation challenge more acute than for young people in Africa. In response to this challenge and to also address Africa’s structural economic transformation, the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings has undertaken research on the prospects for large-scale job creation through the development of ‘industries without smokestacks’ including tourism, agro-processing, horticulture, and services that has revealed a promising path forward. This book is the first to document the potential for non-traditional industries to address the formal sector job creation that is critical for Africa to simultaneously harness its demographic dividend and achieve structural transformation. In the face of premature deindustrialization, many economists have voiced pessimism about Africa’s ability to replicate past economic development models. The book also documents the potential of an alternative economic development model for Africa based on industries without smokestacks. Finally, the book suggests practical policy solutions to realize the potential of these industries

Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He serves on the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), and holds a prestigious SARChI Chair in Economic Growth, Poverty and Inequality Research. He is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a UNU-WIDER Board Member.

BRAHIMA COULIBALY is vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings and the Edward M. Bernstein Scholar, having served earlier as director of the program’s Africa Growth Initiative. Previously he was chief economist and head of the emerging market and developing economies group at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has published widely on topics in international finance, macroeconomics, economic development, monetary economics, and trade. His research has featured in prominent media outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

Richard Newfarmer is the Country Director for Uganda and Rwanda at the International Growth Centre. Previously, he was the World Bank’s Special Representative to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, after a career working with the Bank in China, East Asia and Latin America. In 2018, he co-edited Industries without Smokestacks: Industrialization in Africa Reconsidered.

John Page is senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program of the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC and nonresident senior fellow of UNU-WIDER. He was the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa until 2008 and has published widely on industrial development and industrial policy in Africa and Asia. He is the co-author of UNIDO’s Industrial Development Report, 2009.