Lord Mendelsohn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mendelsohn on 2016-05-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has been asked by the Department for International Development to analyse why Africa’s share of global manufacturing has fallen from three percent in 1970 to less than two percent in 2014.

Baroness Verma

DFID, BIS and the FCO form a joint Trade Policy Unit which collectively works on issues of trade policy and trade facilitation and regularly scrutinises sectoral trade and growth trends across Africa.

While Africa’s share of global manufacturing has fallen since 1970, this is mostly driven by the rise in manufacturing production in China and India. Manufacturing production is increasing across Africa, but with varying experiences across countries. African manufacturing grew at 3.5% annually in real terms over the last decade. However, manufacturing still represents on a small fraction of economic activity and it is our assessment that manufacturing in Africa is lagging.

The World Bank calculates that 18 million jobs need to be created in Africa every year until 2035 to keep up with this growth. The Department for International Development is currently scaling up our efforts to boost manufacturing in Africa to help create jobs and economic opportunities. This adds to DFID’s strong portfolio on unlocking industrialisation and trade in Africa.