When the state and business interact effectively they can promote a more efficient allocation of scarce resources, appropriate industrial policy and a more effective and prioritised removal of key obstacles to growth, than when the two sides fail to co-operate or engage in harmful collusion. This book, based on original empirical research undertaken in Africa and India, addresses what constitutes the effectiveness of state-business relations, what explains their formation and evolution over time and whether effective state-business relations matter for economic performance. Analysing the effects of state-business relations on economic performance at both the macro and micro levels, the book concludes that where effective state-business relations are established – either through formal or informal institutional patterns and relationships – the growth effects are generally positive. Establishing, sustaining and renewing effective state-business relations are political processes. The better organized the business community and the government are for purposes of such relations, the more effective state-business relations will be in negotiating growth enhancing policies. The book is of interest to researchers in the fields of development studies, management, economics and political science.

This book endeavors to take the conceptualization of the relationship between business, government and development in African countries to a new level. In the twenty-first century, the interests and operations of government and business inevitably intersect all over the African continent. No government, federal or state, can afford to ignore the needs of business. But what are these needs, how does business express its needs to government and what institutions organize government-business relations in African countries? How should government regulate business, or should it choose to let the markets rule? Government and Business Relations in Africa brings together many of sub-Saharan African leading scholars to address these critical questions. Business and Government Relations in Africa examines the key players in the game—federal and state governments and business groups—and the processes that govern the relationships between them. It looks at the regulatory regimes that have an impact on business and provides a number of case studies of the relationships between government and economic development around the African continent, highlighting different processes and practices. It shows the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest both to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regard to business-government relations and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of African politics, comparative politics, public policy, business and politics, sustainable development and sustainability, economic development, and managerial economics.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Much of the information relevant to policy formulation for industrial development is held by the private sector, not by public officials. There is therefore fairly broad agreement in the development literature that some form of structured engagement — often referred to as close or strategic coordination — between the public and private sectors is needed, both to assist in the design of appropriate policies and to provide feedback on their implementation. There is less agreement on how that engagement should be structured, how its objectives should be defined, and how success should be measured. In fact, the academic literature on close coordination provides little practical guidance on how governments interested in developing a framework for government—business engagement should go about doing it. The burden of this lack of guidance falls most heavily on Africa, where — despite 20 years of growth — lack of structural transformation has slowed job creation and the pace of poverty reduction. Increasingly, African governments are seeking to design and implement policies to encourage the more rapid growth of high productivity industries and in the process confronting the need to engage constructively with the private sector. These efforts have met with mixed results. For sustained success in structural transformation, new policies and new approaches to government-business coordination will be needed. In 2014 the Korea International Cooperation Agency and UNU-WIDER launched a joint research project on 'The Practice of Industrial Policy'. The objective of the project was to help African policy-makers develop better coordination between the public and private sectors in order to identify the constraints to faster structural transformation and to design, implement, and monitor policies to remove them. This book, written by national researchers and international experts, presents the results of that research.

This book demonstrates the changing dynamics of India’s engagement with Africa, focusing on trade, investment, official development assistance, capacity building activities and the diaspora. It also examines its impact at the economic, political and societal levels with respect to governance, democratic structures, education and health. India has competitive edge of historical goodwill and it is one of the most important countries engaging Africa in the 21st Century. For Africa, India has emerged from an aid recipient country to a major aid provider but on a basis of partnership model. The book provides a contemporary analysis and assessment of Indo-Africa relations, bringing together contributions from the Global South and from the North that explore whether the relationship is truly ‘mutually beneficial’.

This book argues that a key factor leading to successful economic development is the relationship between business and the state. Based on extensive original research, the book shows how the formation of long-standing coalitions between state institutions and business institutions can be crucial.

This book argues that a key dynamic behind economic development in the emerging markets is the coordination between the state and businesses. Exploring the links between institutions, state--business alliances and economic development in the context of tumultuous market transitions since the 1980s, the book tackles the formation and sustainability of coordination-inducing institutions besides their mere existence, and points out the new modalities of coordination in the age of new developmentalism. Based on extensive original research in Turkey and Mexico embedded in a comparative historical analysis, the book shows how state--business alliances have been formed, collapsed and re-formed between the respective states and shifting business actors since the launching of market transitions. It demonstrates how both the state and business actors, and their cohesiveness vs. fragmentation, play crucial roles in the making and sustainability of the institutions, which are central to state--business alliances. It explores the emergence of new actors, the diversification of the organizational landscape, and the evolution of the ways in which the states interact with businesses throughout major economic and political transformations that helped transform the respective states and their interactions with the non-state actors. It draws on the meandering developmental trajectories of Turkey and Mexico from the 1970s to the present and goes on to draw some lessons for institution-building and market reforms in selected countries in North Africa.

In recent years, China and India have become the most important economic partners of Africa and their footprints are growing by leaps and bounds, transforming Africa's international relations in a dramatic way. Although the overall impact of China and India's engagement in Africa has been positive in the short-term, partly as a result of higher returns from commodity exports fuelled by excessive demands from both countries, little research exists on the actual impact of China and India's growing involvement on Africa's economic transformation. This book examines in detail the opportunities and challenges posed by the increasing presence of China and India in Africa, and proposes critical interventions that African governments must undertake in order to negotiate with China and India from a stronger and more informed platform.