How can regional development be accelerated

These communication costs are a very broad concept; they include also a risk-element, viz. The previous sample of earlier agglomeration theories shows that there is no uniform theoretical conception —and certainly not an operational one— concerning the various causes of agglomerative forces; some of these conceptions are not of a purely economic nature, but also of a social and psychological nature.

On the other hand, there is a broad agreement on the very existence of agglomeration forces, which stimulate industrial concentration. Therefore, it seems pertinent that agglomeration economies exert a positive influence on industrial clustering, and that these agglomeration economies give rise to a decrease in communication costs between industries at the same locations. This decrease in costs is supposed to induce industrial bundles or clusters, this effect being greater for industries with higher interconnectivity.

Agglomeration advantages do not only favour city formation, but induce also industrial co-location. This concentration of economic activity benefits from proximity conditions, indivisibilities of large-scale plants, knowledge creation and spillovers, and geographic image effects.

According to standard location analysis, spatial co-location thus tends to generate efficiency increases of various kind, either of a Marshall-Arrow-Romer MAR type of externality related to increasing returns to scale or of a Jacobs type of externality related to benefits from local social capital, including communication and knowledge spill-overs.

There is a vast amount of literature on these effects and on the driving forces and impacts of socio-territorial proximity in relation to industrial agglomeration see also Caragliu, Many regional development studies focus the attention on the backgrounds of industrial location and concentration. This has had big impacts on regional development policy, as it was often too easily accepted that attracting new industries was an effective panacea. However, we will argue that regional development is a conditional strategy; specific location conditions may be necessary, but by no means sufficient conditions for attracting new business.

Against this background we will introduce later on the notion of a «resourceful region». The remainder of the present paper will offer an overview of several notions of industrial agglomerations on the basis of various contributions in the literature. We will demonstrate that —despite the great variation in interpretation and origin— external economies related to size, connectivity and local synergy are the critical factors that favour territorial concentration of firms.

The notion of an industrial district has already a long history in the development literature and dates mainly back to Marshall , who may be seen as the founding father of the notion of external economies in relation to plant size and indivisibilities. This may lead to vertical integration and increasing firm size. The industrial districts conceptualization by Marshall was mainly instigated by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, which laid the foundation for territorially integrated industrial agglomerations e.

Industrial districts have played a pivotal role in engineering sciences and in the industrial organisation literature for decades in the last century. The existence of economies of scale of large plants including indivisible equipment has always been a major signpost for a better understanding of spatial concentration of industrial activity.

Well-known examples include steel industries and oil refineries. But in the second part of the 20th century adjusted industrial concentration models came into being, not only in manufacturing industries, but also in the service sector see for an overview also Bellandi and De Propris, A contemporaneous illustrative representation of the industrial district notion can be found in the so-called «Third Italy» phenomenon, in which a conglomerate of small and medium size enterprises creates a joint and focused pool of competitive knowledge and innovation resources, while scale advantages could be reached through cultural synergy and geographical proximity see Bagnosco, ; Becattini et al.

Spatial networks play an important role in this industrial model, in particular among SMEs. The clear success of the latter developmental strategies prompted complementary views, as advocated amongst others by the New Industrial Spaces literature see Scott , the Milieu Innovateur literature see Aydalot, , and the Learning Region literature see Storper, In these classes of contributions, the notions of cultural proximity, spatial innovation and collective learning mechanisms, and institutional support systems, respectively, are seen as a critical flanking suprastructure favouring efficiency and high performance and leading to spatial-economic accumulation effects that induce a geographic concentration of firms in a region or locality.

It should be noted that the industrial districts literature contains also feeble elements: it does not show which type of specialisation is the most favourable; it does not make a convincing case for the geographical emergence and location of competing industrial districts, and it does not provide operational policy guidelines on the creation and management of such districts from a regional development perspective.

Clearly, the industrial district literature has meant a continuous source of inspiration for dedicated regional industrial growth strategies and it has prompted a rich literature on focussed regional economic policy, not only in Europe, but also elsewhere.

Spatial symbiosis turns out to be the major ingredient for the emergence of such districts and has offered many useful handles for effective industrial cluster policy see also Nijkamp and Ratajczak, This will be further addressed in our concept of «resourceful regions», but first we will critically review some other regional development concepts.

The post-war regional development debate in Europe has mainly centred on two complementary —but often competitive— concepts, viz. These find their genesis in the abovementioned distinction into polarisation and agglomeration forces. The concept of growth poles —in the spirit of polarisation effects— relates mainly to abstract topological economic spaces and not to geonomic spaces, i. A growth pole is conceived of as existing in a field of centrifugal and centripetal forces with repulsion and attraction effects in an interdependent economic system see Perroux, In general, most literature about growth poles assigns a major role to interaction with other industries or bundles of industries.

Technical and economic interdependencies are considered as a conditio sine qua non for the realization of regional growth; the latter may be conceived of as a process of interdependent transformations which are realized within a certain period. In terms of conventional input-output analysis, one may state that interdependent growth effects become, in a sense, «broader», as the matrix of interindustrial relations becomes less diagonal or block-diagonal.

Over the course of time the scope of the theory and the concept of a growth pole have been expanded and reoriented, so that a growth pole is often considered as an ensemble of economic forces with high interlinkages, which are able to transmit growth impulses to all economic sectors in an interdependent economy, without much emphasis on spatial dimensions.

When geographical positions are also taken into account, the notion of «growth centres», defined as geographical locations of growth poles and resulting industrial concentrations in geographical space, is often used instead of «growth poles», where the latter is related to an abstract economic space.

Clearly, both concepts are interrelated. The growth centre theory originates from a spatial growth theory that may be viewed as a development theory in a simultaneous sectoral-temporal-spatial context and that is based on a territorial clustering of economic activities.

The concept of a growth centre can be considered as a very useful one, particularly since it is an analytical tool for studying accelerated regional growth. A particularly important contribution to growth centre theory in a more elaborated geographical framework has been presented by Boudeville , with his well-known tripartite division into homogeneous, polarized and planning spaces.

Generally speaking, growth centre policy can be considered as a process of de- centralized concentration of development activities in order to accelerate the process of regional or local growth. It should take into account industrial interactions, external economies caused by agglomeration effects, and intertemporal locational interrelations. The dynamic effects, resulting from the attraction of new investments, assign a high superiority to sequential development strategies.

The growth pole and growth centre theory have assumed a prominent role in the s and s, as these concepts were regarded as strategic vehicles for accelerated regional economic growth.

Interesting examples can be found in Italy, Spain, France and Brasil, and in many other countries. A related concept has also often been employed, viz. This notion regards connectivity and infrastructure as the main key toward economic success of regions. Consequently, location and network mechanisms are interwoven in this concept.

The notion of «industrial corridor» is rather akin to the previous concept see Gibson et al. In the course of time, new elements were added to these concepts, in particular, knowledge and innovation infrastructure.

In conclusion, the growth pole literature has created a wealth of policy strategies for regions in less privileged circumstances. Against this background, also the notion of spatial convergence strategies has found an interesting culmination point in the growth pole concept which may be seen as a balanced strategy aiming at a «decentralized concentration».

A modern variant on the growth pole-growth centre discussion can be found in the popular concepts of National Innovation Systems NIS vs. NIS refers to innovation specialisation in a national —largely a-spatial— context, while RIS refers to the geographic context of a given innovation strategy see for more details Asheim and Coenen, , Asheim and Gertler, , Cooke et al.

In a way, these concepts bear some resemblance to the above mentioned distinction into polarization and agglomeration forces, or into growth poles and growth centres, as the focus on innovative ability has also a clear geographical connotation.

Open RIS is based on flexible public and private initiatives, regional synergy and symbiosis, a strong knowledge base, and creative and learning actors see Kourtit, In this context, a «resourceful region» uses spatial capital and entrepreneurial capital as key constituents, as will be outlined in Section 8. A blend of polarization and agglomeration effects can be found in the industrial complex literature. This concept started to flourish in the post WW II re-development and re-construction period, when large industrial agglomerations were built.

In terms of input-output linkages, an industrial complex is composed of those industrial sectors that have a block-diagonal structure of rows and columns in a national or regional matrix of inter-industrial relations; block-diagonality of a matrix implies a high degree of interlinkages both forward and backward between certain sectors.

Bundles of industries selected in this way show mutual interrelations, while they possess relatively low interrelations with respect to extra-complex activities.

The interrelations are of such a nature and degree that a spatial juxtaposition of industrial units in a given region or country can lead to substantial external economies scale economies, density economies etc. Industrial complex analysis deals with spatial schemes of incidence and development of grouped industrial units. It can be considered as a valuable application and extension of traditional input-output analysis at a micro scale of large plants.

Additionally, it is a useful instrument for implementing concentrated industrial development in a local setting. It is concerned with the economic feasibility of developing certain types of industrial activities at a given, economically favourable location and with the estimation of the order of magnitude of locational advantages of such combinations compared to other types of locational structures.

Industrial complex analysis, is therefore, a functional technique within the framework of a planned regional growth, since it allows one to identify and to evaluate combinations of industrial activities see Nijkamp, A classical example of industrial complex analysis can be found in Isard and Schooler and Isard et al. The analysis identifies and evaluates desirable bundles of industrial expansion for Puerto Rico. None of the existing selection techniques in regional analysis general economic development approach, individual comparative-cost analysis, location quotients, labour coefficients, coefficients of localization, analysis of commodity flows and balances of payments, interregional input-output approach, linear programming, and gravity techniques appeared to be appropriate or conclusive, although most of them were valid in certain respects.

The first stage was the choice of relevant industrial complexes based upon an identification of sets of industrial units which might profitably locate in the region concerned.

A criterion might be availability of resources, like various types of labour, natural resources or proximity of the latter and an advantageous geographical site.

For example, in the case of Puerto Rico, the economic proximity of Venezuela and the availability of cheap labour led to a consideration of production processes related to crude oil and natural gas, thus giving rise to refinery, petrochemical and synthetic fiber activities, so that the actual complexes to be focused on seem to be the latter set of activities. The enormous number of possible combinations of products and by-products in a large-scale plant is reduced by consideration of flow sheets of commodities related to the production processes mentioned above.

This allows the identification of a number of relevant complexes, each of them based on different technical combinations of refinery-petrochemical-synthetic-fiber activities.

The second stage was a technological representation of all individual and interindustrial production activities i.

The third and last step centred around the calculation of total inputs and outputs required for each production program and their associated costs and revenues, followed by a differential cost revenue comparison with identical complexes settled on the mainland. It is clear that geographic co-location in an industrial complex emerges from scale advantages and spatial vicinity advantages.

Industrial symbiosis however, has to be embedded in a broader spatial development strategy, and consequently, we have observed in the past decades the rise of other, complementary types of concentrated spatial development policy, one of them being industrial clusters. We will focus on this notion in the next section. In the past decades, the cluster concept has become a fashionable approach in the industrial growth literature.

The horticulture business in the western part of the Netherlands is a good example of a strong, internationally recognized and mutually interwoven sector. The geographical dimension was not strongly present in this initial cluster concept, but was added later on. According to a subsequent publication of Porter : «Clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions for example, universities, standards agencies, and trade associations in particular fields that compete but also cooperate» pp.

The critical conditions of a successful operation of an industrial cluster are sum- marized by Porter in his so-called diamond model which seeks to present the drivers of competitive performance of industries see Figure 1. It should be added that strict spatial juxtaposition or co-location is not a necessary condition for an industrial cluster, in contrast to an industrial complex.

But the existence of synergy relationships is a clear necessary condition for a competitive advantage of firms or industries belonging to —or associated with— a cluster. Porter, Harvard Business Review, January Thus, the «pure» geography —in terms of minimum physical distance friction— plays a less important role here. Synergy among industries can also be achieved by network linkages, e. Clearly, the focus of clusters on either generic economic-technological dimensions or on local economic-geographical dimensions is not always very transparent in the prevailing extant literature on clusters see also Porter and Ketels, Cluster policy —with a focus on industrial agglomerations— has become an important strategic handle for regional and industrial policy in many countries and regions, not only in the western world but also in developing countries see also Asheim et al.

It has in recent years also obtained new conceptual orientations, e. In the course of time, network linkages —both tangible and intangible— have become an increasingly important feature of advanced clusters. This has also prompted new thinking on so-called proximity relations. This will be discussed in the next section. Spatial symbiosis lies at the heart of industrial clusters. This symbiosis does not only refer to industrial interdependencies at a given place, but also to indirect link-ages to e.

As mentioned in the previous sections, industrial agglomeration manifests itself at the interface of socio-economic synergy and geographic co-location. These two forces have been the historical dividing lines between national industrial policy and regional growth policy. In the past decades, these two features have received renewed attention as a result of the increasing popularity of proximity patterns among industries.

Proximity has both a spatial and a relational dimension in a network configuration of various actors or firms see also Boschma, Proximity is the reverse concept of distance friction, but it is much broader in nature. It does not only refer to Euclidean closeness or distance , but incorporates also social science oriented interactions related to similarity in culture, values, traditions, technologies, entrepreneurial styles, information handling, and so forth see for a broad exposition, Torre and Wallet, In the proximity literature see e.

Caragliu and Nijkamp, the following subdivision of proximity concepts is sometimes made:. An extensive set of contributions to the study of proximity in regional science is contained in Torre and Wallet We will briefly discuss here two types of proximity that are critical for industrial agglomerations, viz.

The notion of cognitive proximity plays an important role in the present proximity literature. This popularity is largely caused by modern communication technology, in particular digital technology.

The share of physical transport costs in the total cost portfolio is rapidly declining and has even led to the «death of distance» hypothesis see Cairncross, Knowledge and information have become substantial parts of inter-actor connectivity patterns. They form the blood circulation of spatial networks and are regarded as critical for industrial-spatial symbiosis. Social capital is another important driver of economic progress. This notion is not necessarily based on altruism, but presupposes deliberate and rational motives to achieve certain personal or business objectives.

This also holds for effective clusters in the context of regional development strategies see e. Bochniarz, , and Westlund, An example of a study on proximity relations —based on social and cognitive capital in a spatial network— can be found in a case study by Kourtit et al.

The leading sectors in this proximity network —based on the five previous proximity relations— are called «nova stars». It is clear that proximity conditions are important stimuli for regional development, as they offer competitive conditions through e. Proximity is often used in combination with connectivity, as both concepts are facilitators of learning behaviour.

It goes without saying that the measurement of proximity relations is fraught with many problems. Appropriate network indicators for proximity are rather rare. But recent research efforts have shown a remarkable progress in data analysis and analytical rigour see for a broad and quantitatively-oriented study Caragliu, The next section will be devoted to our new integrative conceptualization of regional development strategy based on the «resourceful region» concept.

The Concept of «Resourceful Regions». The economic fate of nations, cities and regions exhibits an enormous variety across our planet. In various cases, it may be the physical geography e. In other cases, it may be cultural inertia, religious beliefs or lack of entrepreneurial spirit that drag a region into poverty. And salient spatial inequalities can then be coped with through spatial mobility of capital and workers, or other resources.

This simple les- son does not provide many useful policy handles. The ratio of output to input is of course a good measure for efficiency of a region, but there are multiple outputs and multiple inputs, so that an unambiguous efficiency indicator is hard to obtain. In addition, some inputs or outputs are not flexible to adjust, so that regional development is a process fraught with inert responses and complex space-time dynamics.

An appropriate tool to measure and rank the efficiency of actors e. This is an increasingly popular tool for benchmarking studies among regions or cities see e. In the recent past, the notion of «territorial capital» mainly introduced and popularized by Camagni, has provided an interesting analytical tool to understand the hurdles and opportunities of regional dynamics. The basic idea is that various types of capital in a region form the conditions that shape regional growth.

Elements of «territorial capital» are inter alia: technology, social capital, resources, or human capital. This conceptualization means no doubt a significant enrichment of conventional regional growth theory. Clearly, the empirical test of this new concept still needs further elaboration.

One of the less convincing elements in the «territorial capital» concept is the fact that not all constituents of regional growth may be regarded as a capital or asset e. In addition, the distinction between necessary, sufficient and desirable conditions for a better regional performance is not always conclusive. Our attempt will now address the latter challenges by introducing the «resourceful region» concept.

We take our departure point in an older theoretical framework developed by the French geographer Vidal de la Blache , often called «possibilism». This notion states that any region has a bundle of options or opportunities from which proper ones may have to be selected in order to enhance social economic achievement levels of the region concerned. Different regions may choose different options depending on their physical-geographical position, cultural backgrounds, or social attitudes.

The French historian Lucien Febvre described the «possibilism» approach as follows: «There are no necessities, but everywhere possibilities; and man as a master of the possibilities, is the judge of their use» quoted in Johnston et al. Regional economic dynamics becomes thus an evolutionary process influenced by internal and external mechanisms, based on a learning model. The human agency is thus the critical factor in a «possibilistic» regional development strategy.

In modern social science, this is sometimes also referred to as the «capabilities» approach see e. Basta, , van Geenhuizen and Nijkamp, , Sen, , and Nussbaum, The main idea behind the «resourceful region» concept is that ingenuity and cognitive response to challenges are assets of a region that decide on success or failure of development policy of the region at hand. Every region has a portfolio of growth opportunities, ranging from physical-geographical conditions to human-social abilities.

The key mechanism in using these inputs is an intelligent management, exploitation and combination of these scarce assets, a process driven by smart, cognitive and skillful insights and decisions. Consequently, a resourceful region is an area that is pro-actively driven by a smart combination of economic potentiality e. The balanced mix of these supporting conditions for successful regional development can be represented in a so-called «Pentagon» model, sketched in Figure 2.

The principles of the Pentagon approach and various modelling applications can be found in Nijkamp et al. The main idea is that the desired performance conditions of actors or institutions can normally be summarized in five key factors. In the centre of Figure 2 , the acronym XXQ stands for the highest posssible quality performance to be achieved for the socio-economic position of the region concerned see for details also Nijkamp, It goes without saying that the notion of a «resourceful region» is strongly akin to the concept of a smart region, the main difference being that resources are a portfolio of options, while smartness refers more to cognitive-technological abilities.

This also means that a resourceful region may be high-tech oriented, but this is not a necessary nor sufficient condition. Regional development is based on a multidimensional package of performance facilitators including technology, culture, networks, entrepreneurship and education see Tubadji et al. Figure 2 A Pentagon prism of regional development conditions in a resourceful region.

It should be noted that the management of a «resourceful region» presupposes an alert policy driven by competent foresight and innovative skills of all actors involved. The man vision should be that regions are not areas «in troubled water», but sources of unforeseen opportunities, provided all resources are properly exploited.

A resourceful region may not be based on a policy of «backing the losers» or even not on «picking the winners», but «optimizing all promising opportunities». Clearly, productivity —interpreted in a broad socio-economic sense— is a key parameter in regional development, as this means a rise in efficient use of scarce resources.

Regional development policy does not take place in a «wonderland of no spatial di- mensions», but exploits the opportunities provided by agglomeration advantages and density economies in a region, complemented with accessibility conditions, network connectivity, multidimensional proximity, and —last but not least— human capital and entrepreneurial spirit.

Finally, a resourceful region is thus not only based on education, research and creativity, but also on smart learning conditions, stimulated by open creative knowledge, innovative and open interactions and flexible networking, shared consensus building in social capital relations, and strategic and forward-looking knowledge management. The overview of various strategic regional growth concepts and vehicles in the previous sections has shown a surprising variety of complementary development concepts.

In all cases, the existence of external economies as a catalyst for regional growth appears to play an important role. A region is essentially a seedbed of resources, which have to be uncovered, released and exploited.

The intelligent combination of such resources is the core challenge of regional development policy. This «resource» interpretation also applies to the development of the aviation sector. This sector is an advanced multi-product sector with specialized products that need strong network linkages and geographical linkages.

From this perspective, modern cluster thinking appears to offer meaningful ingredients for accelerated regional growth strategies. The aviation sector is a complex high-tech sector based on a functional specialization and a geographic —often regional— concentration of activities. This refers to both the physical production of airplanes and particles, as well as to the logistics of the airplane movements and related transport and hospitality activities , and also to the management and design of airport facilities.

In many countries, the aviation sector is a rapidly developing sector, with clear features of a growth centre, an industrial cluster and a proximity hub. And therefore, the operational strategic development of a given aviation activity can best be favoured through the use of operational cluster strategies in the form of a «resourceful region». Aviation has in the past decades indeed become a major industry in many countries.

The aviation industry comprises many elements: airline activities for a broad tourist and business market, cargo transport, logistic management activities for flight scheduling and catering, airport construction and management, and airplane building industries including airplane parts. In various countries, the development of the aviation sector is also linked to the space industry e. The aviation industry is thus clearly a high-tech sector, with many linkages to other industrial sectors.

And of course, this cluster has strong intra-industry linkages with many specific branches and firms, up to the level of even SMEs. Consequently, such sectors tend to be non-footloose: they enjoy in many cases the benefits of industrial agglomerations. This chapter introduces the various dimensions to regional development in Africa. It starts off by highlighting why regional development matters and the important components of the development process. It concludes by pointing out the challenges to development and the need for citizen participation in the development process.

Regional Development in Africa. Regional economic prosperity depends upon realizing the full economic potential of all sub-regions. The territorial approach to the issue of development needs to be a part of the strategic thinking of national and regional bodies. However, how do we make the regions more competitive while at the same time prevent further socio-economic discrepancies in countries and regions?

Certainly, place-based development is crucial in accelerating regional growth which focuses on the people, their assets, opportunities and challenges. Indeed, understanding the process of development and how development is to occur is crucial in mapping out strategies to reach and attain set goals.

Arguably, the idea of development applies equally to all nations and regions. Some development indicators such as access to energy, healthcare, education and other social amenities are crucial to accelerate the development process.

The Challenge Network argues that there are three dominant high-level elements that play a vital role in development of nations. These are [ 1 ]: Assets and liabilities possessed by a society.

Goals and values that society sets for itself. Internal rules by which a society operates. Assets and liabilities possessed by a society is the first of the elements underpinning the development process. The African region is endowed with a lot of natural assets that are yet to be fully harnessed. The natural and human assets of the African region far outweigh its liabilities.

Goals and values that society sets for itself is a crucial element in the development process. Setting clear goals that is well articulated, understood, accepted and actively pursued with clear actions and backed by a general consensus is important.

Setting unclear goals makes a society run the risk of either drifting towards the direction where market forces press it to go, or achieving those unclear set goals by accident. Setting unrealistic goals may often lead to a less happy end for that society. This is prevalent within the African region. The third element underpinning the development of nations is the internal rules by which a society is governed. Development entails learning and managing increasing amounts of complexity that manifests itself in the forms of interconnections, options, information and resources.

The internal rules of nations and regions guide its socio-economic and political growth. Indeed, societies which organize themselves for political and socio-economic growth develops, and those who are unable to do this do not.

With respect to the speed of development, institutions play a vital role implicitly through parliaments and embodied laws or explicitly through rules of everyday conduct and social engagement.

It is difficult to change tacit institutions in predictable ways. However, policy instruments can be used to alter formal institutions to achieve development outcomes. Regional development policies should be mainly about integration of several sectoral policies that are often designed in a way that is not coherent. It is also about tailoring policies to the specific needs of different places. Indeed, focusing on increasing productivity will yield increased competitiveness which leads to growth that improves quality of life.

The following sections now delve into some African sectoral dynamics and their role in accelerating regional development in Africa. Access to modern energy is vital to ending poverty. Africa is at the epicenter of global energy poverty, specifically sub-Sahara Africa. The International Energy Agency IEA argues that about million Africans do not have access to electricity, which amounts to about two-thirds of the continent population [ 2 ].

Over million people in Africa still do not have access to clean cooking fuels, leading to a huge number of premature deaths each year resulting from emissions [ 3 ]. The energy sector in sub-Sahara Africa is not yet able to meet the needs and aspirations of its citizens [ 4 ]. The primary purpose of our energy systems is to enable economic growth and to improve better quality of life [ 5 ].

Consumers are demanding renewables and other alternative forms of energy to cater for their basic energy needs. New technologies, such as solar photovoltaic solar PV technologies, are changing ways of generating power in Africa, and new business models are attracting and bringing public, private and donor investments into the energy sector.

In general, African countries are endowed with abundant renewable energy resources that can be increasingly harnessed [ 7 ]. Increasing access to electricity can turbocharge economic growth in the region, enabling a major push towards a more self-sustaining model of economic growth [ 8 ]. Urbanization, beyond the cities and infrastructure, is more about the people.

Urban population in Africa hovers close to million people and it is expected to double by [ 10 ]. Urbanization is vital to fighting poverty in the developing world. Africa has the opportunity to get urbanization right and to avoid mistakes made by other regions through effecting the right urbanization policies and growth strategies.

A challenge we find in Africa is that cities are developing while manufacturing is declining which poses a challenge on job availability. Another challenge we find in Africa is that cities are growing but population are sprawling, with population spread over kilometers which makes concentration, an important value of cities, not so effective.

We have the opportunity in Africa to ensure that growth of cities is compact and efficient. A lack of infrastructure density is another important factor affecting urbanization in Africa. There are lots of opportunities for future infrastructure investments that would make cities work more effectively in small, medium-sized and large mega cities. Indeed, every dollar of investment counts so as to ensure that cities are more efficient, that they grow in a more compact manner.

With respect to pattern of urbanization and city development, it is observed that in most African cities, commercial and industrial land are not necessarily concentrated in city centers or in certain parts of the cities.

The jobs are very dispersed around the cities. This presents an opportunity for cities to become more efficient with respect to the urban pattern of the cities. Indeed, urbanization for most African cities would mean; developing cities with jobs, good housing policies and good transportation linkages that connect the housing and the jobs so that people are able to reach a large number of available jobs within a reasonable time.

Food security in Africa is a vital part of development that needs to be addressed using a short, medium and long term approach. Sustainable agriculture and food security needs to be an important part of the policy dialog to secure a sustainable growth path for Africa.

Rising population and a rich diet that takes a lot more resources to produce than they used to are driving increased demand for food. Increasing food production is becoming increasingly difficult because rising food demand is happening simultaneously with increased energy bills.