Value Creation And Opportunity Management In Africa S Leather Sector

The scope of the study reported in this book entails understanding the constraints and providing potential diagnostics to Africa’s leather sector, which is otherwise globally, one of the most lucrative agro-based industries in the world, estimated at over US$ 130Billion. One of the principle core thematic aspects of the leather sector is, characteristically, its long value chain with multiple socio-economic dimensions. These entail employability, creation of wealth, gender parity and rural development. Thusly, in an effort to stimulate scholarly discussion, the study argues that preemptively, the problems facing the leather value chain stratums are high losses, low value addition initiatives and unexplored opportunities that are synonymous with the Africa’s leather industry. Indeed, the results of the research conceptualized opportunity management as a critical panacea towards value addition strategy for the leather sector in developing countries. In dealing with this concept, the book evaluated the various value chains phases and identified nine specific issues and variables drawn between value addition and the main leather strata. With this background, the study posed a main question and four sub questions to closely expound on related hypotheses and in lieu pursue four thematic aspects: trade, productivity, competitiveness, and innovation covered in twelve chapters of the book. Conclusively, the book manages to successfully conceptualize as a novelty that opportunity management is integral towards developing a leather value addition strategy for the developing countries with particular emphasis to Africa.

Africa’s Development Dynamics uses lessons from Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa to develop policy recommendations and share good practices. The 2022 edition explores how developing regional value chains can help African countries rebound from the socio-economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate productive transformation.

This book examines how light manufacturing can offer a viable solution for Sub-Saharan Africa's need for structural transformation and productive job creation, given its potential competitiveness based on low wage costs and an abundance of natural resources that supply raw materials needed for industries. Based on five different analytical tools and data sources, the book examines in detail the binding constraints in each of the subsectors relevant for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): apparel, leather goods, metal products, agribusiness, and wood products. Ethiopia is used as an example, with Vietnam as a comparator and China as a benchmark, and with insights from Tanzania and Zambia used to draw out lessons more broadly for SSA. The book recommends a program of focused policies to exploit Africa's latent comparative advantage in a particular group of light manufacturing industries - especially leather goods, garments, and agricultural processing. These industries hold the prospect of initiating rapid, substantial, and potentially self-propelling waves of rising output, employment, productivity, and exports that can push countries like Ethiopia on a path of structural change of the sort recently achieved in both China and Vietnam. The timing for these initiatives is very appropriate as China's comparative advantage in these areas is diminishing due to steep cost increases associated with rising wages and non-wage labor costs, escalating land prices, and mounting regulatory costs. Five features of this book distinguish it from previous studies. First, the detailed work on light manufacturing at the subsector and product levels in five countries provide in-depth cost comparisons between Asia and Africa that can be used as a framework for future studies. Second, the book uses a wide array of quantitative and qualitative techniques to identify key constraints to enterprises and to evaluate firm performance differences across countries. Third, the findings that firm constraints vary by country, sector, and firm size led to a focused approach to identifying constraints and combining market-based measures and select government intervention to remove them. Fourth, the solution to light manufacturing problems cuts across many sectors: solving the manufacturing inputs problem requires solving specific issues in agriculture, education, and infrastructure. African countries cannot afford to wait until all the problems across sectors are resolved. Fifth, the book draws on experiences and solutions from other developing countries to inform its recommendations. This book will be very valuable to African policy makers, professional economists, and anyone interested in the economic development, industrialization, and structural transformation of developing countries.

In the corporate world, businesses are focused on increasing their revenues but ignore the cries of social and environmental concerns from nearby communities. At the other end of the spectrum, nonprofits seek to help their local communities but are constantly required to create fundraisers without having adequate time to put those collected donations to use. The world needs an industry to combine civic engagement and public service with wealth and value creation to provide self-sustaining opportunities for public services that are sometimes overlooked or ignored. The Handbook of Research on Value Creation for Small and Micro Social Enterprises defines the concept of social enterprise and provides vital insight into the importance of rebalancing, creating, and promoting economic activities that achieve social fairness, cultural fulfillment, and the protection of the environment. While highlighting topics such as marketing strategies, cross-cultural frameworks, and public policy, this publication focuses on empowering rather than controlling sustainable solutions for various communities and consumers. This book is ideally designed for researchers, policymakers, academicians who teach and/or research small and micro social enterprises, and advanced-level students furthering their research exposure to pertinent topics in this field.

This study provides an overview of how the Bangladeshi leather value chain is organised and governed. It analyses how the leather processing and leather goods/footwear subsectors are integrated into the global market and to what extent informal arrangements including illicit practices are conducive to global market entry. Power relations are dissected along the value chain, in order to analyse how local producers adapt to upholding competitiveness. The results of the work show the need to devise upgrading strategies which pay heed to the reality of informal dynamics in a global value chain (GVC) to improve the local producers’ competitiveness. The GVC perspective was combined with considerations on upgrading, subcontracting, middlemen and informality to adequately analyse the complexity of the transactions in the chain. The data of this study are drawn from empirical field studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh and other sections of the international leather value chain during the time period of 2010 to 2014. A qualitative research approach was complemented with quantitative methods.

Sub-Saharan Africa is at a turning point. The barriers to economic growth seen in the 1980-2000 era are disappearing and new optimism is spreading. However, difficult goals of eliminating poverty, achieving equity and overcoming environmental threats continue. This much-needed and insightful textbook has been written to help us understand this combination of emerging improvements and significant challenges. Opening with an analysis of the main theories relating to development in Sub-Saharan Africa, the book explores all the key issues, including: Human development; Rapid urbanization; Structural and gender dimensions; Sustainable development and environmental issues; and Africa’s role in the world economy. The authors use economic tools and concepts throughout, in a way that makes them accessible to students without an economics background. Readers are also aided by a wide range of case studies, on-the-ground examples and statistical information, which provide a detailed analysis of each topic. This text is also accompanied by an e-resource, featuring additional sources for students and instructors. African Economic Development is a clear and comprehensive textbook suitable for courses on African economic development, development economics, African studies and development studies.

This book serves the purpose of documenting and promoting African experiences on sustainable development, which encompasses both, formal and non-formal education. Sustainable development is very important to Africa, but there is a paucity of publication which documents and promotes experiences from African countries. Due to their complexity, the interrelations between social, economic and political factors related to sustainable development, especially at universities, need to be better understood. There is also a real need to showcase successful examples of how African institutions are handling their sustainability challenges. It is against this background that this book has been produced. It is a truly interdisciplinary publication, useful to scholars, social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies and private companies, undertaking research and/or executing projects focusing on sustainability from across Africa. As African nations strive to pursue the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it is imperative to cater for the information needs seen across the continent and foster the dissemination of experiences and case studies, which may support both, on-going and future efforts. The scope of the book is deliberately kept wide, and we are looking for contributions across the spectrum of sustainable development from business and economics, to arts and fashion, administration, environment, languages and media studies.