Making Africa work like Asia Gabriel Englander June 22, 2026 This page in: English

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/making-africa-work-like-asia The first surprising idea in Joe Studwell’s How Africa Works was an unfamiliar-to-me explanation for low economic growth in the post-independence decades. Whereas usually high African population growth rates are framed as challenges, Studwell convinced me over the course of the book that low population density is an important reason why most countries failed to develop large manufacturing sectors. Only now, with Africa reaching the population density of Asia in 1960, are there enough people to form large consumer markets and share the fixed costs of infrastructure.