African countries are being asked to change their development matrixes to be able to grow their economies. According to Professor Mandivamba Rukuni, most countries on the continent are stuck in the Middle Income Trap.
He warns that with the situation as it is such countries will never grow beyond the middle-income category as they have to stay afloat by borrowing loans, and this he says, is the biggest danger.
In development economics, the middle-income trap is a situation where a country has developed until its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita has reached a middle level of income, but the country does not develop further and it does not attain high income beyond the middle-income status.
The Professor of Agricultural Economics Emeritus in an interview at the just concluded, Validation Workshop for Post Malabo CAADP Agenda Technical Working Groups meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, says the solution to the mess most African countries find themselves in after being enticed into the middle-income trap, is to realize that each of the African countries is in the middle-income trap and they need to work as one on the way out of it. He says the situation “doesn’t self-correct, through adherence to good governance nor holding regular elections or adhering to the tenets of human rights.”
Prof. Rukuni says a way out is by abandoning the processes of “managing our economies, like rushing to the International Monetary Fund(IMF), to the World Bank, borrowing here and there, it is about telling ourselves that we can do with what we have.”
He advises that concrete measure including uplifting the rural people through growing the agriculture sector is what is needed, as the agriculture sector is the main source of raw materials for the manufacturing sector as well as a major source of food for both the rural populations as well as the urban people.
“Raw materials for manufacturing become cheaper and coming from the rural areas,” he says and adds, “the manufacturing sector starts to gallop, food is not a problem anymore,”
He maintains that there can be no agricultural, or industrial transformation that is being sought after by most African states until such countries are able to feed their populations. “Food system transformation, pulls everyone,” says and adds, “those who are producing are uplifted and those who are consuming, they put in the money when they purchase the food supplies and it goes back to the rural producers,” food system transformation according to Prof. Rukuni triggers broad-based agricultural transformation that leads to industrial transformation.
The Professor of Agricultural Economics argues that having money is not wealth and goes on to explain that, “wealth is creating a situation where something produces another thing for less effort,” he says and adds, “in this case, we need to make it possible for the rural people to produce more for less effort, and that way they will create wealth.”
He is asking African countries to get it right about wealth creation and industrialization, he says there is a tendency to confuse business with economics and building of factories with industrialisation, “industrialisation is not a mechanical process it is a social process,” he explains.
Prof. Rukuni says when a country industrializes, it is organizing from the farm level, for higher productivity with less effort, “so building factories around shopping malls will only get a few people involved,” he warns.
