This book investigates the relationship between sustainable development and structural transformation within international development policy. On the one hand, sustainable development is promoted as a multi-dimensional concept for achieving environmentally and socially responsible change. On the other hand, structural transformation refers to a sustained period of growth in living standards and incomes that brings sectoral change. For some, these two objectives seem at odds with each other, but this book argues that incorporating environmental initiatives into structural transformation goals in lower-income countries actually results in better results than strategies prioritising economic growth. Drawing on extensive structural equation modelling and original analysis, the book presents an innovative inclusive sustainable development framework to demonstrate the benefits of a more integrated approach to development planning, aiming for structural transformation in line with inclusive sustainable development principles. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of global development, and to policymakers within government and development organizations.

‘Resurgent Africa: Structural Transformation in Sustainable Development’ is a study of structural change dynamics in Africa and its effect on job creation, living standards and the efficiency of productive cities through manufacturing productivity growth that benefit the majority. Empirical data from selected African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia, provides in-depth analysis and knowledge of the continent’s diversified economies by establishing relationships between industrialization trends; rates of urbanization; and urban living standards, income growth and employment in Africa. The findings reveal unconventional pathways of structural change, patterns of jobless growth suggesting economic growth that does not necessarily lead to employment, dominance of services at the expense of manufacturing industry explaining the regress in Africa’s industrial sector and occurrence of structural transformation without improvement in labour productivity. These are important concerns for Africa’s long-term development leading to the conclusion that sustainable urbanization and industrialization are not only closely connected but also key drivers of economic change. The book includes recommendations for policymakers to adopt a new approach to development for a resurgent Africa.

The celebratory tone about the emergence of the BRICs and the improved growth in Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America during the 2000s obscures the reality that, for large parts of the developing world, the development challenges are more acute than ever before. After three decades of Washington Consensus policies, deepening globalization, and China's and India's increasing competitiveness in ever more goods and services, many developing countries are now facing three critical challenges: how to engender a transformation of the production structure that creates many more productive jobs, how to make growth more inclusive, and how to stimulate a growth process compatible with environmental sustainability. This book brings together development scholars and practitioners from multiple academic disciplines and policy perspectives to analyze important facets of this triple challenge, to explore interconnections among them and suggest strategies for overcoming the challenges in the current age of globalization. Three features distinguish this book from other current works in the field. First, this book looks beyond the current global crisis and short-term growth opportunities and analyzes the challenges to development from a long-term perspective. Second, books on the barriers to development tend to concentrate on one of the three challenges, e.g. Barbier (2010) A Global Green New Deal on environmental sustainability; Cimoli, Dosi, Stiglitz (2009) Industrial Policy and Development on structural transformation; and Milanovic (2011) The Have and the Have-Nots on exclusion. This book, in contrast, brings the three challenges together to emphasize that they challenges are interlinked and that strategies and policies must begin to recognize these interconnections to address different aspects of the challenges concomitantly. Finally, the contributors to the book include some of the most renowned development thinkers of our time.

Debates on African development continue to downplay the achievement of the continent: economic achievements are diminished and the perception of a conflict prone continent continues. Many of the policy prescriptions externally imposed on African countries have done little to transform the continent largely because they have been conceived and applied without context. Using literature from diverse origins, this book expands our knowledge about Africa and makes practical suggestions as to how successful development in a complex, yet dynamic continent can be achieved. Widening the policy dialogue and providing alternative thinking on the key elements and full extent of opportunities and challenges towards achieving the socio-economic transformation of Africa, the book moves the debate from the rhetoric to reality. As a considered reflection on the ‘Africa’s transformation’ narrative, it outlines the practical pathways necessary for Africa’s sustainable development, providing policy makers and researchers with tested solutions. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and policy professionals working in African development, public policy, international political economy, economic policy and politics.

Taking South Africa as an important case study of the challenges of structural transformation, the book offers a new micro-meso level framework and evidence linking country-specific and global dynamics of change, with a focus on the current challenges and opportunities faced by middle-income countries.

This book discusses the geopolitics of development from the point of view of the Global South. Written by scholars and development experts from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this volume presents reflections on various historical, current, and future trajectories of development in the contemporary Global South. The book is divided into five parts. Part I focuses on the relationship of development in the Global South to globalization, discussing the diversity of situations across countries in structural terms. Part II critiques and analyzes the concept and paradigms of development, emphasizing alternative discourses and policy models. Part III focuses on the analysis of the relationship between environment and development, showing how environmental conditions have become a key factor in the renewal of development thinking. Part IV examines different cultural strategies and conceptions constituting the basis of development thinking and policy in different fields. Part V addresses the construction of knowledge pertaining to the Global South, revisiting the theoretical trajectory of development models and advocating for the construction of new ideas around the region. Providing a multidimensional look at development in the Global South, this volume will benefit academics, development experts, and postgraduate students interested in having a global vision of the ideas of development in different territorial and cultural fields.