JONATHAN COOK: Working together to scale up firms will help Africa boost jobs
10 May 2021 - 14:19
Almost everyone agrees Africa needs more firms to create long-term jobs. But the current emphasis on creating new small firms, while not wrong, represents just a beginning. An economy really provides jobs when firms grow big enough to be competitive. We need to help firms grow.
Speaking during a Centre for Development and Enterprise webinar on why Africa needs more firms, developmental economist Sir Paul Collier described a small firm in Ethiopia employing 50 people that had a productivity per worker 10 times higher than a microfirm of four people making the same things!..
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