Presentation at the REPOA’s 21st Annual Research Workshop

Research Workshop on Making Industrialization Work for Socio-Economic Transformation

Presentation at the REPOA’s 21st Annual Research Workshop


On 6 - 7 April Finn Tarp and John Page presented in the REPOA’s 21st Annual Research Workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The workshop was aimed at promoting policy dialogue based on evidence from research on Tanzania and other countries on industrialization, structural change, and socio-economic transformation. 

Tarp’s presentation on 6 April shared research and evidence from the Reconciling Africa’s growth, poverty and inequality trends – growth and poverty project (GAPP) and Learning to compete (L2C) – accelerating industrial development in Africa project. The presentation highlighted Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic growth and improvement in the macroeconomic management. However, he also pointed out that challenges remain. Despite strong growth, employment creation has lagged and agricultural productivity is constrained. A summary of the economic progress and key challenges are laid out by Tarp in his blog post ‘Environmental change and economic development in Africa‘ published in the WIDERAngle of November 2015.

View and download Finn Tarp's presentation slides

During the same day, Page presented the study Industry in Tanzania: Performance, Prospects, and Public Policy, a joint research undertaken by UNU-WIDER and the Policy Research for Development (REPOA). During his presentation, Page takes the country case of Tanzania to exemplify his argument that Africa has failed to industrialize. Echoing his WIDERAngle blog post ‘Made in Africa: Some new thinking for Africa Industrialization Day’ published on February 2016, Page concluded with a number of policy initiatives to strengthen the industrial sector of the East African country.