Julius Gatune, Maastricht School of Management and Deon Cloete, South African Institute of International Affairs
The scenarios provide plausible and possible alternatives for futures of industrialisation. They also alert decision makers to desired and undesired development pathways.
Custom fabrication involves taking measurements, choosing tools, deciding on sequences of steps and ordering from a menu of materials. AIs under development promise to take humans out of the loop.
Increased capital investment and productivity need not result in job losses. Government can use industrial policy to link investment incentives to job preservation and even job creation.
South Africa’s economic reforms of the 1990s were overdone, destroying some industries and thus impacting economic growth and job creation. A re-balancing of industrial policy is called for.
If the US were to stop dumping these valuable metals in landfills and to cease exporting them as cheap scrap, its imports could fall, and there would be less of these metals being made from scratch.
The need to connect African markets to aid development will once again be discussed at the World Economic Forum. The debate needs to move beyond the usual rhetoric.
On Q&A, an unemployed merchant seafarer said Australian seafarers could replaced by foreign seafarers working on 457 visas, working for as little as $2 an hour. We check the facts.
Efforts to address Africa’s developmental challenges are hampered by features of the global governance architecture that undermine national policy and international cooperation.
Research Fellow at Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University and Head SAIIA Futures Programme, South African Institute of International Affairs
Research fellow at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society., The University of Melbourne