Small-Scale Industry in African Economic Development

Abstract

This question can be considered at two levels: the general or the particular. At the general level, one can discuss the pros and cons of emphasis on small-scale industries in development plans and investment patterns, perhaps with some special emphasis on societies at very early stages of economic development as African countries usually are (in Rostow’s terminology, ‘traditional societies’, or societies in the early phases of the ‘pre-condition’ stage). At the particular level, one should pay special attention to special features peculiar to African economies, which would not necessarily be dis played by Asian, Middle Eastern, or Latin American economies at the same income level, nor would they be found in earlier European history. The particular approach is more meritorious, but suffers from the difficulty that it may not be possible to generalize too much and the matter had really best be discussed for individual countries; for this, however, the present author lacks time, space, and competence.