What Contribution can China Make to Inclusive Growth in SSA?

Despite rapid economic growth the numbers living in absolute poverty in Africa have grown. The absence of inclusive growth can be traced to the structure of globalisation, the advance of financialisation and the trajectory of technological progress. A number of disruptive forces in which China has played a major role offer the possibility of moving from this exclusive growth strategy – terms of trade reversal, shifting markets and new paradigms of innovation. By providing cheap consumer and capital goods, new market opportunities and new more appropriate technologies, China has the capacity to help Africa move to a more sustainable growth path. However, this is not an inevitable outcome, and outcomes will also be contextual. The extent to which Africa is able to take advantage of opportunities opened up by China to move to a new more inclusive growth path will largely be determined by political factors, but these, too, are not independent of China’s increasing economic and political footprint, both globally and in its direct relations with Africa

Globalisation, inequality and climate change: what difference does China make?

The deepening of globalisation in the late 20th century saw accelerating climate change, growing inequality and obstinate levels of poverty, not just in low-income economies, but also in the European Union and the rest of the high-income world. These outcomes can be traced directly to the workings of the global economy. Three developments suggest a limit to deepening globalisation. Global production systems are environmentally unsustainable; global excess production capacity is leading to a race to the bottom in wages for many, not just in the developing world. China's access to the global economy, with its overwhelming resource hunger and large and educated labour force, exacerbates these developments. Indian development is around the corner. What can be done? Global production systems need to be truncated and growth needs to become more local. China, India and other newly emergent Asian economies need to be drawn into the discussions and institutions of global governance

How can Sub-Saharan Africa turn the China-India threat into an opportunity

The rise of China and India – the Asian Driver economies – is transforming the global economic, political and social landscape. The challenges posed by their rapid growth and global emergence are increasingly at the centre of strategic debates in the large OECD economies. But what of their impacts on other low income economies in general, and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular? Perhaps these giant Asian economies, confronted with their own challenges in overcoming endemic and deeply-rooted poverty, share common problems and have common interests with other low income economies? Or, perhaps more darkly, the overlap of common interests is thin and the rise of the Asian Driver economies poses more of a challenge than an opportunity for SSA and other low income economies

What Does the Rise of China Do for Industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa?

China's rapid growth and deepening global presence in Africa creates a major challenge for the conventional wisdom of industrialisation as a core component of development strategy. These challenges are expressed through a combination of direct impacts (expressed in bilateral country-to-country relations) and indirect impacts (reflected in competition in third country markets). In current structures, these impacts are predominantly harmful for SSA's industrial growth, as expressed through its recent experience in the exports of clothing to the US under AGOA (African Growth & Opportunity Act). If Washington Consensus policies prevail, these harmful impacts will be sustained and deepened

The role of standards in global value chains

Standards have become an increasingly important dimension in global trade. Without the capacity to meet the growing body of standards, producers may either have difficulty in entering global markets, or be relegated to unprofitable and low-margin niches. This paper overviews the history of standards, explainsthe difference between different types of standards, and identifies the key stakeholders involved in the setting of standards. It then addresses the role that standards play in enterprise upgrading and considers some of the major costs for producers in meeting standards, including potential cost barriers for small-scale producers. Before concluding with a discussion of the policy challenges raised by these developments, it discusses the extent to which standards intensity in global value chains will be affected when the final markets increasingly move from high-income consumers in the North to lower-income consumers in Southern economies such as China and India.Labor Policies,Markets and Market Access,Information Security&Privacy,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies

The impact of China and India on the developing world

Makroökonomischer Einfluß, Weltwirtschaft, Entwicklung, China, Indien, Welt, Macroeconomic effect, World economy, Economic development, India, World

Can an agricultural 'commodity' be de-commodified, and if so who is to gain?

The weakness of redistributional mechanisms, both globally and within developing economies, makes it imperative to directly enhance the productive incomes of poor people. Coffee farmers, generally located in the poorest countries, have suffered especially badly in recent years, and farm gate and internationally traded bean prices are now at historically low levels. At the same time, though, global coffee consumers are becoming more discerning. With at least as much potential taste variety as in the case of wine, final product prices are becoming more differentiated. Margins for some coffees can therefore be expected to increase significantly as consumers become more discriminating in their tastes. But who is to gain from these more differentiated prices? Analysis shows that whilst the price spread is growing in global trading markets, it is simultaneously narrowing at the farm gate. At the same time, the destruction of coffee marketing boards (largely as a result of Structural Adjustment Programmes) has had unintended effects: instead of their margins accruing to farmers, almost all of these margins are being absorbed in the high-income importing countries. Thus, left to market forces, the likelihood is that farmers will gain little from increasingly discriminating final consumer tastes. Instead it is the global branders and the supermarket chains who are likely to appropriate these growing product rents. However, if consumers can be educated to recognise that better coffees are directly linked to their place of origin rather than to their brand names, a more equal global distribution of income is likely to emerge in this value chain. This paper ends with a discussion of which stakeholders may be involved in educating final consumer tastes in an appropriate manner

What are the implications for global value chains when the market shifts from the north to the south?

Rapid growth in many low-income economies was fuelled by the insertion of producers into global value chains feeding into high-income northern markets. This paper charts the evolution of financial and economic crisis in the global economy and argues that the likely outcome will be sustained growth in the two very large Asian Driver economies of China and India and stagnation in the historically dominant northern economies. Given the nature of demand in low-income southern economies, it is likely to be reflected in sustained demand for commodities, with other southern economy producers in global value chains being forced into lower levels of value added. Standards are likely to be of considerably reduced significance in value chains feeding into China and India