ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses aspect of industrialization that receives too little attention in the literature on appropriate technology, and in thinking about manufacturing and industrial development — the role of light engineering. Most 'very late starters' are in sub-Saharan Africa, and unlike countries in Asia and Latin America, most have an extremely weak light engineering sector. In 1986, manufactured exports from all of sub-Saharan Africa totalled $3.2 billion, less than what was exported in the same year by Malaysia alone. SIS productivity was lower than Technology Consultancy Centre's, and the Adjorlolos gradually realized that they could make a better profit using the machines for other things. As a result, metal fabricators like the Adjorlolo brothers often used scrap steel where iron would have been adequate. The irony was that scrap iron was plentiful, littering roadsides, workshops and farms where expensive imported tractors and heavy equipment lay rusting.
