Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Let's talk about something actually important for a change: Africa!

noahpinion.substack.com/p/all-futurism…

2/You can't understand how important Africa is unless you look at a population projection.

3/Here's another view.

And remember, Africa's proportion of the YOUNG population will be far larger even than this graph shows.

The future of Africa is literally the future of humanity.

4/And yes, this is true DESPITE the fact that African fertility is falling, and that it will probably fall faster than expected due to improvements in education and contraception.

thelancet.com/action/showPdf…

5/But Africa's overwhelming importance isn't just due to population. It's also due to marginal utility. Africa is rapidly becoming the only place on Earth with a significant amount of extreme poverty. That means Africa needs growth more than anywhere else.

6/Now, Americans might not generally realize it, but most of Africa has made dramatic improvements in a variety of social indicators in recent decades.

7/And a lot of this is due to two big factors: Peace and stability, and economic growth.

8/But if African economic growth is to continue, the continent needs INDUSTRIALIZATION!

And while India is experimenting with services-first industrialization, the traditional path -- now being followed by Bangladesh and Vietnam -- is through manufacturing.

9/Some people are very optimistic about manufacturing, looking (for example) at all the small independently-owned Chinese factories that have sprung up on the continent.

amazon.com/Next-Factory-W…

10/Others, including top development economist @rodrikdani, are more pessimistic.

A few years ago, Rodrik argued that African and Latin American countries (but not Asian countries!) are experiencing "premature deindustrialization".

nber.org/papers/w20935

11/Rodrik thinks new technology is making it harder to do manufacturing-led industrialization -- basically the "rise of the robots" hypothesis.

But Vietnam and Bangladesh are still doing it! Why should robots affect Asia less than other regions??

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

12/In fact, a more likely story for "premature deindustrialization" is that a lot of African countries tried state-led manufacturing schemes in the 70s that went bust in the 90s.

brookings.edu/blog/africa-in…

13/But now things may be turning around. A new working paper by Kruse et al. shows that manufacturing employment is finally rising in Africa.

wider.unu.edu/sites/default/…

14/Now, this is just a start. As Rodrik shows in another paper, most of the new African manufacturing jobs are in small informal factories with low and stagnant productivity.

Good for employment, but for long-term growth we need more productivity!!

drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/files/dani-rod…

15/I'm optimistic that as Asia develops and global capital looks for the next cheap manufacturing base, Africa will be the only option, and the process of manufacturing-led industrialization will be accelerated -- robots or no robots.

16/But of course African governments need to be focusing policy on speeding up industrialization. There are lots of things to try, and we can't afford to wait!

17/Meanwhile, if you're an Effective Altruist looking to give your money to Africa, my suggestion is to always be thinking about what will speed up industrialization. It's really the whole ballgame.

18/But anyway, the big point here is:

1. The future of Africa is literally the future of the human race.

2. Whether Africa gets rich is (along with climate change) THE big important question of this century.

(end)

noahpinion.substack.com/p/all-futurism…

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