Research reports and studiesApril 2019Neil Balchin, David Booth and Dirk Willem te VeldeWomen smiling with cotton. Photo: © Neil ThomasEconomic transformation is a continuous, long-term process of shifting labour and other resources from lower- to higher-productivity activities both within and between sectors, to facilitate aggregate labour productivity growth over a sustained period and result in more diversified and complex productive activities. Structural transformations are often started in agriculture but then go hand-in-hand with movements from agriculture to industry or higher-productivity services over time.This paper explores the factors that shape the prospects of success in economic transformation at the sector level. It provides an evidence base on the factors and conditions that drive or hold back economic transformation by focusing on examples where changes at a sector level triggered economic transformation, and the roles different actors played throughout this process.Read the research How economic transformation happens at the sector level: evidence from Africa and AsiaDocumentpdfRelated Striving to transform Tanzania’s cotton sectorWe review Gatsby Africa’s efforts to turn around Tanzania’s underperforming cotton sector.Briefing papers1 February 2019Tackling the governance of economic transformation Policies to move African economies from growth to transformation are urgently needed, but are they feasible, given typical political-economic constraints?Briefing papers13 September 2018See more:economic developmenteconomic policyprivate sectorTanzania
