A Strategy to Achieve Pro-Poor Growth: Roles of Labor Intensive Industry in Asia and Africa

Abstract

Strategies to achieve the pro-poor growth in LDCs through industrial policy are explored. It is studied which industry played a major role to provide the poor employment opportunities in the process of economic development in Asia and Africa. It turns out that while the share of agriculture in employment of the poor was greater, manufacturing industry played a leading role to increase employment opportunities for the poor in Thailand and Taiwan, which are typical fast growing economies in East Asian for the 1970 s-90 s. The same tendency is found for Mauritius, which is another example of successful export-oriented countries in Africa, while other African and South Asian countries where the momentum of globalization had not fully incorporated, e.g. Malawi, South Africa and India, manufacturing industry did not absorb the poor for employment as much. It is concluded that manufacturing industry may increase employment of the poor more than agriculture if its comparative advantage is materialized through globalization, even though the share of agriculture in employment of the poor is greater than of manufacturing in typical LDCs. Even in the context of the pro-poor growth the role of manufacturing should not be overlooked.