Industrial Development in East Africa

1/J [ OST countries in Africa are predominantly agricultural and their economies are based on the export of one or two agricultural products subject to wide fluctuations in price. In areas with an expanding population demanding a higher living standard, but practicing primitive methods of cultivation and hampered by a subsistence economy, serious economic problems arise and there is a great need for a more diversified economy. Industrial development is usually advocated as a possible solution to this problem and has achieved considerable success in the Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. But in East Africa the development of secondary industries suffers from many limitations such as the small size of the local market, low purchasing power of the bulk of the population, lack of skilled labor and poor quality of migrant labor, great distances and scattered population, lack of raw materials, and the difficulty of attracting capital to such a poorlyendowed region. Kenya's modern history, and indeed that of East Africa too, may be said to have begun when the Kenya railway was completed in 1901 from Miiombasa to Kisumu.' Industrial development has thus been very recent. The impressive achievements to date must be viewed against this modern historical background and a geographical background of a poor region with a harsh physical environment of semi-aridity over great areas, highly variable rainfall and lack of water supplies, poor soils, and vast areas infested with tsetse fly. East Africa consists of the three mainland territories of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika, and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. They form a compact block of territory from 4120 north to 120 south, with a total area of some twothirds of a million square miles, Tanganyika being by far the largest in extent. The population is some 20 million (1956 estimate), 9812 per cent African, but with an important small minority of about 300,000 Asians and nearly 100,000 Europeans. Half the Asians and two-thirds of the Europeans live in Kenya. The population distribution maps of the East African Royal Commission show clearly the concentration of population in the higher rainfall areas. In many parts of East Africa, Africans are mostly at the subsistence stage, although the exchange economy has penetrated widely. There is a great need to overcome the basic poverty of the region and diversify the economy both by intensification of agriculture and the growth of commerce and industry. Indeed the success of industry will depend greatly on increasing agricultural productivity. There are de1 Z. A. Marsh and G. Kingsnorth: An Introduction to the History of East Africa, 1957, p. 172

Economic geography · Geography · African history and culture studies · Local Economic Development and Planning

• Political Regime and Economic Actors

  Open Access•Miles Kahler•World Politics•1981

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