The coming African miracle

What can sub-Saharan Africa, which has not yet leveraged its abundant agricultural land and natural resources to generate shared and sustainable growth, learn from the Asian experience on successful land management? A guest opinion by Tim Hanstad, president and CEO of Landesa.

By // 19 December 2014

Can the Asian economic miracle be replicated in Africa?

This question has been brought to the fore by the remarkable recent book “How Asia Works” by Joe Studwell, former editor-in-chief of the China Economic Quarterly. In his book, Studwell appropriately credits the crucial role of land rights reform in Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan in helping to spark and enable the sustained economic growth of those Asian tigers — growth that started in the agricultural sector and then fed the manufacturing sector.

Studwell asserts that land rights reform was one of three factors for successful Asian economies, giving a kick-start to development by using a large rural workforce and providing capital for growth.

Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).
The views in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect Devex's editorial views.

About the author

  • Tim Hanstad

    Tim Hanstad

    Tim Hanstad is CEO of the Chandler Foundation, co-founder of Landesa, a Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardee, and a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur Awardee.

Search for articles

Most Read