Is Economic Growth and Development Realizable for Africa? – Review of Asian Countries: A Theoretical Perspective

Derrick Anquanah Cudjoe^1, , He Yumei¹, Bismark Odum² and Noah Kwaku Baah³

¹Economics and Management Department, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

²College of Harbor, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, China

³School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

Cite this paper:
Derrick Anquanah Cudjoe, He Yumei, Bismark Odum and Noah Kwaku Baah. Is Economic Growth and Development Realizable for Africa? – Review of Asian Countries: A Theoretical Perspective. World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. 2019; 5(3):151-159. doi: 10.12691/wjssh-5-3-5

Abstract

There has been large a reservoir of papers spawned about African countries and the degrading but the real state of their economies. The African continent has seen under-industrialization, scaring rates of poverty, low levels of education, low levels of skilled labour force and high rates of diseases. After the overwhelmingly uproar for independence averagely 50 years ago, most countries in the continent still make ends meet under the mercy hands of the West and China. Africa has the highest poverty rate of 422,358,131 people living as of December 2018 (World Poverty Clock). The economic growth of Asia offers massive encouragement that economic growth is not a fantasy. Most countries in Asia have risen to overcome their gloomy economic situations. Countries such as Japan and South Korea have overturned war torn and hopeless economic situations into globally competitive countries. Singapore, a country without a single natural resource and with a diversity of people, has been able to achieve economic growth. China has managed to pull over 800 million people out of the grips of poverty in the past four decades, a feat which many pundits consider as a massive economic miracle. The main aim of this paper is to review the economic growth and developmental strategies of some Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and China and in that regard make policy recommendations for sub-Saharan Africa. The regional choice is because Asia is indisputably the fastest growing economic region in the world contemporarily, both in terms of GDP and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). In addition, the choice for the selected countries is because the countries under consideration were in a way or the other once in an economic crisis just as many countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords:
economic growth development sub-Saharan Africa Japan South Korea Singapore China

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Lee, Kuan Yew. 2000. From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000. Singapore: Times Media Private Limited.
[2]	Economic Development Board. 2002. Heart Work. Singapore: Economic Development Board.
[3]	Baker, Jim. 2000. Crossroads: A Popular History of Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore: Times Media Private Limited.
[4]	Krugman, P. (1994). The myth of Asia’s miracle. Foreign Affairs, 73 (6), pp. 62-78. ISSN 0015-7120.
[5]	Abeysinghe, T. & Choy, K.M. (2007). The Singapore economy: an econometric perspective. Taylor & Francis.
[6]	Connolly, M. & Kei-Mu Y. (2008). How Much of South Korea’s Growth Miracle Can Be Explained by Trade Policy? Working Paper 2008-23, http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/papers/2008/wp08-23bk.pdf.
[7]	Kim, Hayam & Heo, Uk. (2017). Comparative Analysis of Economic Development in South Korea and Taiwan: Lessons for Other Developing Countries. Asian Perspective. 41.
[8]	Caves, Richard and Masu Uekusa. 1976. Industrial Organization in Japan. Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
[9]	Tonogi, A. (2017). Economic Growth Analysis of Japan by Dynamic General Equilibrium Model with R&D Investment, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Japan, Public Policy Review, Vol.13, No.3, November 2017, pp. 207-238.
[10]	Sakoh, K. (1984). JAPANESE ECONOMIC SUCCESS: INDUSTRIAL POLICY OR FREE MARKET? Gato Journal, vol.4, No.2, pp. 521-542.
[11]	Japan Development Bank. Facts and Figures About the Japan Development Bank, 1981 and 1984.
[12]	World Bank, China Overview, March 28, 2017, available at http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview.
[13]	Morrison, W. M. (2018). China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, www.crs.gov, RL33534.
[14]	Wang, H.C. and Wu, D.C. (2015) An Explanation for China’s Economic Growth: Expenditure on R&D Promotes Economic Growth. Journal of Service Science and Management, 8, 809-816.
[15]	World Poverty Clock (2018). Available at https://worldpoverty.io/index.html.
[16]	UNESCO, Institute of Statistics (UIS). Available at uis.unesco.org/
[17]	UNICEF Data. Available at https://data.unicef.org.
[18]	Dahir, A. L. (2017). Africa has too few universities for its fast growing population. Available at https://qz.com/africa/878513/university-education-is-still-a-dream-many-in-africa-are-yet-to-attain/.
[19]	World Economic Forum/ Global Competitiveness Index (2017-2018).
[20]	The World Bank, (2019). DataBank “World Development Indicators”. Available online at https://data.worldbank.org/ (accessed on April 10, 2019).
[21]	South Korea, World Maritime News (2018). Available at https://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/tag/south-korea/
[22]	CEOWORLD Magazine. Available at https://ceoworld.biz/
[23]	These Are the World's Most Innovative Countries – Bloomberg. Available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/germany-nearly-catches-korea-as-innovation-champ-u-s-rebounds
[24]	National Bureau of Statistics of China. Available at www.stats.gov.cn/english/Statisticaldata/AnnualData/.