This book explores several aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and their linkages to African economies. It will appeal to policy makers, development agency professionals and researchers, based as it is on stylized facts and rigorous analytical studies. The reader will find state-of-the-art analyses on FDI-related topics throughout the chapters. Policy makers and development professionals will find in this book a useful guide to draw sound policies based on facts and rigorous analyses.

This book explores several aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and their linkages to African economies. It will appeal to policy makers, development agency professionals and researchers, based as it is on stylized facts and rigorous analytical studies. The reader will find state-of-the-art analyses on FDI-related topics throughout the chapters. Policy makers and development professionals will find in this book a useful guide to draw sound policies based on facts and rigorous analyses.

How can Africa, the world’s most lagging region, benefit from globalisation and achieve sustained economic growth? Africa needs greater investment by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to improve competitiveness and generate more growth through positive spill-over effects. Despite the fact that Africa’s returns on investment averaged 29% since 1990, Africa has gained merely 1% of global Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows. The challenge for African countries is how to be a more desirable destination for FDI. The study integrates three currents of economic research, namely from the literature on (endogenous) economic growth, convergence and regional integration, the explanations for Africa’s poor growth and the growing understanding of the role of MNEs in a global economy. The empirical side of the book is based on an econometric study of the determinants of FDI in Africa as well as a detailed firm-level survey conducted in 2000.

Given the lack of adequate resources to finance long-term development in Africa, the need to attract foreign direct investment has become a key aspect of development strategies in recent years advocated by policymakers at national, regional and international levels. This publication evaluates the benefits and disadvantages that FDI brings for the host country in efforts to achieve sustainable economic development, and calls for a more balanced strategic approach which sufficiently recognises the economic and development challenges facing African countries.

This book presents the results of a groundbreaking study on spillovers of knowledge and technology from global value-chain oriented foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and discusses implications for policymakers hoping to harness the power of FDI for economic development.

A few Sub-Saharan countries, by improving their business environment, have begun to attract more substantial foreign direct investment than other African countries with bigger domestic markets and greater natural resources. Like Ireland and Singapore, perhaps they can become competitive internationally and attract sustainable foreign direct investment.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown dramatically and is now the largest and most stable source of private capital for developing countries and economies in transition, accounting for nearly 50 percent of all those flows. Meanwhile, the growing role of FDI in host countries has been accompanied by a change of attitude, from critical wariness toward multinational corporations to sometimes uncritical enthusiasm about their role in the development process. What are the most valuable benefits and opportunities that foreign firms have to offer? What risks and dangers do they pose? Beyond improving the micro and macroeconomic "fundamentals" in their own countries and building an investment-friendly environment, do authorities in host countries need a proactive (rather than passive) policy toward FDI? In one of the most comprehensive studies on FDI in two decades, Theodore Moran synthesizes evidence drawn from a wealth of case literature to assess policies toward FDI in developing countries and economies in transition. His focus is on investment promotion, domestic content mandates, export-performance requirements, joint-venture requirements, and technology-licensing mandates. The study demonstrates that there is indeed a large, energetic, and vital role for host authorities to play in designing policies toward FDI but that the needed actions differ substantially from conventional wisdom on the topic. Dr. Moran offers a pathbreaking agenda for host governments, aimed at maximizing the benefits they can obtain from FDI while minimizing the dangers, and suggests how they might best pursue this agenda.