Can Africa industrialise in its present form?

The 2^nd phase: Industrialisation of Europe

Industrialisation in continental Europe lagged Britain’s by about 50 years, or two generations. It took off first in Belgium after an English migrant, John Cockerill set up a series of factories in the coal and mineral-rich Wallonia region in the socialist South of the country in mid 1820s.  Thus, raw materials availability and permissiveness to allow settlement of non-indigenes were the two key factors responsible for initiating industrialisation in Belgium. Unlike in Britain, it was not pushed by capitalism nor by massive rural-urban migration. In fact, the more urbanised north even lagged the rural south. This is an important lesson for many African countries. Yet many other lessons can be drawn from Germany’s industrialisation. In spite of having large deposits of iron, coal and being fairly ahead of Britain in chemical processes, Germany industrialisation lagged because of disunity occasioned by a multitude of more than 30 states, each trying to protect its own little market. Some states had allowed free migration of English craftsmen like the Cockerill brothers in 1782/84 and Irishman William Thomas Mulvay in 1866. The former copied and built a British – like textile factory in Ratingen in 1784 while the latter was to be instrumental in establishing Iron mining in the Ruhr region. Thousands of British workers were recruited to mine coal, start and run coke-based blast furnaces, manufacture steel for railways and cannons.

It was, however, not until after Chancellor Otto Von Bismark’s 1871 unification of the German states that the country began to make huge strides in industrialisation, establishing itself as the leader of the second Industrial revolution. Following unification, the country focused on Technical Education, Chemical, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering development, quickly overtaking Britain to acquire world leadership in these areas and in production and exports of fertilisers, chemicals and automobiles.

The key lessons for today’s Africa provided by Germany are therefore:  Discard the borders and/or tariff and non-tariff barriers; eliminate any form of economic discrimination based on places of origin or on other irrational sectarian criteria; focus on technical and engineering education; actively seek and source willing highly skilled persons from wherever else, and facilitate their migration and integration within the local communities. Proactively support and protect budding technical enterprises irrespective of ownership.

If Britain, Belgium and Germany teach us how nations could industrialise in peace times, France shows us how war can lay seeds for industrialisation. Lacking sufficient quantities of iron and coal, burdened by a reactionary conservative aristocratic monarchy ruling over a low fertility but largely rural subsisting population on limited land, France lagged her neighbours in industrialisation. They tried to steal British textile technology during King Louis VI’s reign but failed. Even after the 1789 violent overthrow of the monarchy, take-off was slow, with many businessmen fleeing to neighbouring Britain. That was to become a blessing because, there, they and their families learnt skills that would accelerate railway and locomotives building such that by 1850, France had built the biggest number of locomotives in Europe. That is lesson number one from France: Africa’s diaspora who run away from either economic or political hardships on the continent need to be acquiring engineering and technical skills wherever they are, so that when times improve back home, they, or their offspring  can come back and deploy the skills to industrialise.

Chaos and war financing troubles notwithstanding, the 1803-1815 Napoleonic wars and the earlier ones since 1792 availed coal and iron from conquered Belgium, helped build rail, road and canal infrastructure. Additionally, necessity to clothe and feed large numbers of front line soldiers helped to establish and grow the textiles and food canning industries. The sewing machine was invented by the French in this era. Later cooperation with Germany’s Daimler, produced the Peugeot and Renault cars. Clearly the lesson for African countries in conflict is that heightened defence and security requirements in such situations, should be used to develop local long term capacity to manufacture related products, and hence, to industrialise. In Part 3, we will look at lessons for Africa from USA, USSR, and Japan.

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