ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the six resource-based African industrializers. Michael Roemer provides an early assessment of the state of knowledge on the contributions of resource-based industrialization. Resource-based industrialization strategies confront several concerns and opportunities. One reservation is that resource-based industries face the same challenge of managing scarce resources as any other path of industrial development. African resource-based industrializers, despite their path-dependent extractive political legacies and their reliance on mining or agro-industries, are diverse in terms of investment climate, growth performance, income levels, and economic profiles. As is the case with many other resource-based economies, Nigeria's agricultural sector was unwisely neglected even as food imports rose dramatically. South Africa, much like Latin America, started a vigorous program of resource-based industrialization during the interwar period but faced momentous challenges. South Africa needs to devote resource-based revenues to significant investments in technological and other manufacturing capabilities and might boost the skills of the long-neglected Black African labor force through formal schooling and firm-level training.
