Answer to Question #154599 in Economics for Oko jen

Question

Discuss the importance of institutions, specifically government for the promotion of economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa countries. 

Answer 1

It should be recalled once again that the vast majority of the countries in question - practically all of them, except perhaps South Africa - is characterized by an unusually low level of productivity and culture of productive labor. This is not surprising, but rather natural, considering the initial level of workers. Improving the quality of work is a slow business, requiring, in addition to patience and perseverance, conditions. The conditions, in this case, boil down to providing an ever-increasing, and at a very rapid pace, the urban population with suitable jobs. Only the provision of these jobs, i.e. the construction, first of all, of industrial enterprises, as well as infrastructure, is capable of disciplining and civilizing the masses of immigrants from the communal village arriving in the cities, from the usual pre-industrial tribal life.

A special study of the problems of the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the modern young states of Africa south of the Sahara showed that in recent years there has been a kind of turn in this business, i.e. that an increasing number of private-owned enterprises, most of them small, practically individual, appear in the economy and on the market of the African continent. Therefore, the trend towards the development of the market and its saturation at the expense of the amateur African population is a gratifying fact and deserves attention.

This fact deserves attention primarily in the sense that it testifies to the massive entry into the market of a small local entrepreneur. Only such an entrepreneur can, if not saturate the market - this is done successfully without it, mainly by foreign firms - then at least master it, make it their own for the masses of the local population. Economic success, success in development will be noticeable in sub-Saharan Africa when local entrepreneurs fully conquer the market. Until then, alas, it is still far away. And this is due to many reasons.