Page 435 - Volume 2_CHANGES_merged_with links

Community Economic Development

‘ubuntu’ - 'I Am Because We Are'

underdeveloped economies in the region, the IMF and the World Bank imposed a neo-
classical counter-revolution in Africa through Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs)

from 1981 "
"Import Substitution Industrialization" 477
Wikipedia
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“ Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical company which holds a 51% stake in CiplaQCIL, used to

import the drugs it sold in Uganda. In 2005 it entered into a partnership with Quality
Chemicals Industries, its Ugandan distributor, and moved parts of the manufacturing

process to Kampala. The active ingredients still come from India and China but the
tablets are made and quality tested in Uganda, explains Nevin Bradford, CiplaQCIL's chief
executive. It sells drugs for HIV, malaria and hepatitis B to the Ugandan government,

donor agencies and 19 African countries.
This kind of import substitution creates jobs, transfers skills and saves foreign exchange,

as well as stirring patriotic pride. Bradford notes another advantage as Covid disrupts
transport: security of supply.

***
In recent years import substitution has made a quiet comeback. Chinese growth and

Trumpian protectionism are eroding the free-trade principles of the "Washington
Consensus", and slow industrialisation in Africa is reviving interest in alternative policies.

A degree of import substitution is happening anyway, stimulated by population growth
and rising demand. Surveys of African industrial firms by the International Growth Centre,
a research network at the London School of Economics, find that many started out as

import-export businesses before venturing into domestic manufacturing. Half of the 50
leading industrial firms in Ethiopia in 2010 began as traders. A similar pattern holds for

foreign companies in Africa. Chinese manufacturers in Africa make 93% of their revenues
from local or regional sales, according to a 2017 McKinsey survey "
"Import Substitution Makes a Comeback in Africa." 478
The Independent Uganda: (blog) (November 2020)
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Extracts from a 2009 World Bank Report
“ The areas immediately adjacent to Malawi in neighboring countries have relatively low
populations - Eastern Zambia and North-Western Mozambique – resulting in limited

potential for regional trade with direct neighbors. As a result most imports and exports
require international shipping giving Malawi a dependence on transit countries for
infrastructure, procedures and the logistics performance of foreign ports.