Structural transformation
Structural transformation involves the movement of workers from low-productivity sectors (such as agriculture), to high-productivity (industrial, urban-based) sectors, leading to job creation, improved labour productivity and poverty reduction.
In much of Africa, urbanisation has taken place without structural transformation, leaving high numbers of city dwellers trapped in low-productivity informal employment. To create growth and reduce poverty, it is therefore essential to disentangle the connections between cities and structural change.
ACRC will look at how key city systems – including urban planning, infrastructural service provision (such as transport, energy, water and waste management), productivity-enhancing policies and regulatory frameworks, and educational and technology accumulation strategies – need to be pulled together to facilitate structural transformation. Our approach considers how the political economy of cities affects the potential for structural transformation. Success requires ruling elites to commit to investing in the public infrastructure necessary for firms to operate productively, and to building productive state–business relations. This can stand in tension with the incentives to extract rents from firms and household enterprises and to enter into collusive relationships, such as offering subsidies and contracts in return for political and personal financing.
LATEST NEWS from ACRC
ACRC city managers convene to review action research progress
ACRC held its second city managers meeting in Accra, Ghana from 11-15 November 2024. The five-day engagement convened a total of 15 delegates, including ACRC’s senior management team (SMT), city managers and representatives from the operations and research uptake teams.
Why do we need a “new development partnership”?
Demands for equitable development partnerships are not new, but the Black Lives Matter movement has undoubtedly amplified calls for systemic change in the sector, which are making some progress.
Reflecting on the World Urban Forum
The 12th World Urban Forum took place in Cairo last week – only the second time it has been held in Africa since its inception in Nairobi in 2002. A record 24,000 people attended from 182 countries – and it often felt like it (particularly while queueing for lunch)!