Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - We’ll Start Making Pencils In Nigeria By 2018 – Onu, Nigerian Minister Of Technology [A Serious Presentation on Logistics of Production]

"Security" and "economics" are interlinked--you cannot have one without the other. In fact, economic security is what people need and desire--the right to live in peace and be able to create wealth to meet one's obligations to oneself, to family, and to the larger community. Nigeria and Nigerians (as do other African countries) have the resources (land, labor, human capital, etc.) that they need to create the wealth that they need to significantly improve their living standards and even share with their neighbors. The reason why these resources are not being utilized effectively to produce the desired outcomes has to do with what development economists refer to as "coordination failure." Here is a classic definition of "coordination failure"--"A situation in which the inability of agents to coordinate their behavior (choices) leads to an outcome (equilibrium) that leaves all agents worse off than in an alternative situation that is also an equilibrium." For example, an entrepreneur wants to invest in a rural market or build a manufacturing facility in the village but is hesitant to do so because he or she may not be able to secure skilled workers in that location. On the other hand, workers will not invest in skills acquisition in the village because there are no firms to employ them. As a consequence, this failure to coordinate will leave the rural economy stuck in an inferior equilibrium, one characterized by low wages and a class of citizens trapped in extreme poverty and high levels of material deprivation. Despite the fact that all agents (the investor and the village citizens) would be better off if the workers acquired the skills and the entrepreneur invested in productive capacity, society is not likely to get to this higher and better equilibrium without the intervention of the government. The coordination problem is a critical part of not only investment projects but also of larger and more complex activities such as a country's initial push towards industrialization. 

For many years, economists have talked of an underdevelopment trap, which has characterized many African countries. This is defined as "a poverty trap at the regional or national level in which underdevelopment tends to perpetuate itself over time." The trap is a consequence of coordination failure. Take, for example, the commercialization of agriculture, a first step to industrialization. The most important factor in the improvement of agricultural productivity is specialization--an insight that was made quite explicit by Adam Smith many years ago. Today, specialization and the division of labor are the most important characteristics of an advanced and highly developed economy. However, farmers can only specialize if they can easily trade for the other goods and services that they need. The rural farmer must get his or her goods to the market and convince buyers of the quality of those goods. Lack of farm-to-market roads, failure of the farmers to understand the complexities of urban markets, etc., make it virtually impossible for farmers to effectively access urban markets. Middlemen (or women) can resolve this coordination problem and enhance the ability of the farmer to specialize and hence, significantly increase his or her productivity. The middleman is one who understands and cultivates a relationship with both the urban markets and the farmers; he or she has expertise in the quality of many products and hence, can guarantee quality to the urban buyer and at the same time, ensure that the specialized farmer is producing a quality product. Without the available middlemen to whom farmers can sell their produce, farmers are not likely to specialize, forcing the village to remain trapped in underdevelopment, producing only for personal consumption and/or for sale in the village's highly underdeveloped market.

What to do? The answer lies in the "big push"--"a deliberate, purposeful, and economy-wide public policy-led effort to bring about or initiate or accelerate economic development across a broad spectrum of new industries and skills." Among critical activities that are part of the big push are (i) a series of coordinated farm-to-market roads; (ii) rural electrification programs; (iii) provision of clean water to rural areas, including the provision of water- and effluence-treatment plants; (iv) improvement of health care access, especially in the rural areas; (v) provision of a comprehensive system of educational facilities, especially at the elementary and secondary levels; and so on.

With respect to China's big push, read about the Four Modernizations, first articulated by Zhou Enlai in 1963 and formally promulgated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, targeting agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. They, unfortunately, did not include governance.

Nigeria can initiate its own "big push" and emphasize (i) governance; (ii) agriculture; (iii) science and technology; and (iv) peaceful coexistence.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 4:43 AM, 'ienwana' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

China is not our problem. In my not too long a life time, I have seen Japan rise, Taiwan rise, Korea rise now we shout China. Not long ago we complained of China's iron curtains when China shut her doors to all outside influence and forced her citizens to indigenous development. They found it tough but when they were ready, they opened up to a world they had become able to influence; not to beg for aid or borrow from. Let us look inwards no matter what it costs us. In serious analysis national security is more important than arguments on comparative advantages and economics of production. It only needs a leadership that is ready to push and followers willing or even made to be led. We are laughing at Zimbabwe today but I will not be surprised if in 10-20 years Zimbabwe becomes self sufficient with rising economic strength.
Ifedioramma Eugene-Mary Nwana

'Nkolika Ebele' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Our Business men running to china to bring in very cheap but poor quality products killed the few industries that were making headway in the 80s and 90s. The most obvious was the textile industry.They pick samples of these products and manufacture the inferior ones and bring them in and sell at cheap prices. Sometimes they sell them as the original product, because an unsuspecting customer may not know the difference. If you go to the Onitsha Main Market you will see the  all sorts of items brought in from China and of very poor quality,  Products that can be locally produced, you will weep for Nigeria.

Even when they produce things locally like shoes and sandals, they put foreign labels to sell. . Any attempt to barn such goods will be termed Marginalization . The problem is complex.

Nkolika

Awka

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From: Victor Okafor <vokafor@emich.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 5:36 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - We'll Start Making Pencils In Nigeria By 2018 – Onu, Nigerian Minister Of Technology [A Serious Presentation on Logistics of Production]

On the one hand, it's good news that Nigeria looks forward to rejuvenating its productive capacity, specifically by producing/manufacturing its own pencils. On the other hand, given where things are in this 21st century when well-positioned and well-managed nations/societies are engaging in high tech and advanced systems manufacturing in various industrial sectors and the best of them-all are, in fact, looking forward to sending a mission to MARS, the fact that Nigeria is simultaneously just on the threshold of manufacturing something as technologically elementary as a pencil, does say something (does it not?) about how far the nation has retrogressed, and not progressed, in science and technology.

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From: "Oluwatoyin Adepoju" <oluwasrividya@gmail.com>
To: "USAAfricaDialogue" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 8:17:31 AM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - We'll Start Making Pencils In Nigeria By 2018 – Onu, Nigerian Minister Of Technology [A Serious Presentation on Logistics of Production]

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics &  John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
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