Category: South Korea

Should the African lion learn from the Asian tigers? A comparison of FDI-oriented industrial policy in Ethiopia, South Korea and Taiwan

Jostein Hauge1 Comment
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The Huajian shoe factory in the Eastern Industrial Zone in Ethiopia. Photo: .

Ethiopia is being hailed as one of the most successful growth stories in Africa. Because of the country鈥檚 rapid economic growth, the high degree of state intervention in the economy, and the state鈥檚 focus on industrialization, people have started to compare Ethiopia to the Asian 鈥榯igers鈥� (; ; , ; ) 鈥� four countries in East Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) that underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates in the post-WWII era.

However, this emerging literature on Ethiopia-Asia comparisons has not yet sufficiently addressed one of the most important aspects of Ethiopia鈥檚 industrialization strategy 鈥� the attraction of foreign direct investments (FDI) into the manufacturing sector.

The rationale of my was this gap in the literature. In it, I ask the question: Should the African lion learn from the Asian tigers with respect to FDI-oriented industrial policy?聽

In short, my answer is yes. While Ethiopia鈥檚 policies are bringing about short-term economic success and showing promise for further industrialization, the state could arguably bargain harder with foreign investors, like it did in South Korea and Taiwan.Read More »

Historicising the Aid Debate: South Korea as a Successful Aid Recipient

Farwa Sial4 Comments

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鈥楾he principal enemy is orthodoxy: to use the same recipe, administer the same therapy, to resolve the most various types of problems; never to admit complexity and try to reduce it as much as possible, while ignoring that things are always more complicated in reality.
Albert O. Hirschman (1998:110)

It鈥檚 clear from last week鈥檚 blog posts by Duncan Green that he is tired of academic critique against aid which have not been translated into concrete solutions (see and ). However, the problem with his approach to addressing very complex problems is that it leads to reductive debates which are more symptomatic of the problem than constructive ways of finding solutions. Following Pablo Yanguas鈥� of research approaches I thought of taking a step back and analyzing the case of a successful aid recipient, South Korea. 聽I do this in hope of moving away from the 鈥榣iterature鈥� – which Duncan finds overbearing – as well as getting away from the linearity of the contemporary monitoring and evaluation approach used by the aid sector. Read More »