The Fallacy of Leapfrogging Industrialisation

Elton Plaatjes writing in Ventures Africa:

Africa is trying to skip the part of becoming an industrialized continent and moving straight into becoming a continent ready for the information age. Africa has development theory and is not implementing the theory into models for testing. The process of developing models to test in industry will cost the continent much less than jumping straight over in the information age – where 80% of the continent population cannot access such technology

He concludes:

Africa has been misled into thinking that we need to follow the information age and that we can skip the industrial revolution we so badly need. Technological Innovation, as we know it from the US and Europe, tends to feed consumerism in Africa, not employment.

More here
For further context see:
An appeal to African Elites for Cottage Scale Industries
A MAKE Philosophy for Africa: Beyond just Cellphones
Bootstrapping the Industrial Age
Manufacturing Challenges
Firing Up Factories
Manufacturing and Diversification
Building Technology Villages-AproTech Ghana
Manufacturing's Importance : The India Story
Manufacturing is key to Prosperity
The Manufacturing Imperative
"How Africa Missed its Industrialisation"
"Fundamental Unsexy and Absent:Metalworks Africa"
Japan's "Small Engineering Workshops"
"Leapfroggers"
"Leapfrogging with Additive Manufacturing"
"Trail Blazing Maker:Innoson Vehicles-From Plastics to Automobiles"
"Made in Nnewi-The Emergence of an Informal Cluster"