Sub-Saharan Africa and the 4th Industrial Revolution Technological Leapfrogging as a Strategy to enhance Economic Growth?

Abstract: The 4th Industrial Revolution provides a window of opportunity for the developing world and in particular, Sub-Saharan Africa to catch-up in terms of social and economic development by enhancing growth through technological advances. At the same time, it bears the risk for Sub-Saharan Africa to fall even further behind if technological advances cannot be absorbed into the region’s economies. Although, media coverage is growing, academic literature on the topic is scarce and no real strategies on how to use the 4th IR to enhance economic growth in SSA are provided. This research uses an adapted qualitative comparative analysis approach and investigates whether SSA countries are well suited to use technological leapfrogging as a strategy to absorb and adapt technological advances of the 4th IR. Additionally, it assesses how these technological advances are translated into sustainable economic growth in SSA. The main approach involves analysing the presence of factors that determined successful technological leapfrogging in the East Asian Miracle economies in SSA. Accounting for the region’s heterogeneity, this study finds that the most competitive and advanced countries provide a very good basis for technological leapfrogging, and have already embarked upon a path-creating leapfrogging process. However, the translation of technological leapfrogging into economic growth is hampered by infrastructural problems, even in the most competitive countries. Policy recommendations provided include enhancing the creation of business- and investment-friendly environments in less competitive countries to build a better basis for technological leapfrogging as well as investments promoting interregional projects on improving infrastructure, human capital, governance as well as economic stability throughout the growth process.