A Strategic Approach to Industrial Hubs

Abstract

The experience of industrial hubs in Africa is characterized by unevenness and mixed outcomes. Most African countries did not start developing hubs until the late 1990s and 2000s, and most have been unsuccessful in driving sustained industrialization and structural transformation. Although relatively new to industrial hubs policies, Ethiopia has embraced active industrial policies in pursuit of its developmental goals, and this chapter examines its nascent experience and experiments on industrial hubs, linking with experiences elsewhere, and extracting lessons for policymakers and practitioners from both successes and failures. This chapter complements the other chapters on empirical evidence from Africa and illustrates the complex process faced by late latecomers of the twenty-first century. It underlines the centrality of the strategic approach to industrial hubs and its connection with the industrial policy framework. The focus is on policy learning as a process rather than on success as an outcome of what remains a work in progress.