IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2020-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Special economic zones and transnational zones as tools for Southern Africa's growth: Lessons from international best practices

Author

Listed:
  • Roseline T. Karambakuwa
  • Ronney M. Ncwadi
  • Weliswa Matekenya
  • Leward Jeke
  • Syden Mishi

Abstract

The paper evaluates strategies for developing successful special economic zones and transnational zones for Southern African countries to spur growth and employment. Most special economic zones implemented in Southern Africa have largely failed to bring adequate growth and employment due to numerous constraints. Globally, selected countries have successfully implemented export-oriented industries through such spatial industrial policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Roseline T. Karambakuwa & Ronney M. Ncwadi & Weliswa Matekenya & Leward Jeke & Syden Mishi, 2020. "Special economic zones and transnational zones as tools for Southern Africa's growth: Lessons from international best practices," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-170, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2020-170
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2020-170.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arpita Mukherjee & Parthapratim Pal & Saubhik Deb & Subhobrota Ray & Tanu M Goyal, 2016. "Special Economic Zones in India," India Studies in Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-81-322-2806-6, September.
    2. Gary Gereffi & Stacey Frederick & Penny Bamber, . "Diverse paths of upgrading in high-tech manufacturing: Costa Rica in the electronics and medical devices global value chains," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    3. Zeng,Zhihua, 2015. "Global experiences with special economic zones : focus on China and Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7240, The World Bank.
    4. Yehua Dennis Wei & Xinyue Ye, 2004. "Regional Inequality in China: A Case Study of Zhejiang Province," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 95(1), pages 44-60, February.
    5. Farole, Thomas & Moberg, Lotta, 2014. "It worked in China, so why not in Africa? The political economy challenge of Special Economic Zones," WIDER Working Paper Series 152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Thomas Farole & Lotta Moberg, 2014. "It Worked in China, so Why not in Africa?: The Political Economy Challenge of Special Economic Zones," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Olga Sinenko & Igor Mayburov, 2017. "Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Special Economic Zones and Their Influence on the Development of Territories," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(1), pages 115-122.
    8. Alexey Kuznetsov & Olga Kuznetsova, . "The success and failure of Russian SEZs: some policy lessons," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    9. Aggarwal, Aradhna, 2010. "Economic impacts of SEZs: Theoretical approaches and analysis of newly notified SEZs in India," MPRA Paper 20902, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Neva Makgetla, 2021. "Learning from experience: Special Economic Zones in Southern Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-124, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Syden Mishi & Weliswa Matekenya & Leward Jeke & Ronney M. Ncwadi & Roseline T. Karambakuwa, 2021. "Firm and product survival analysis: Evidence from South African tax administrative and products data," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-107, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaroslaw M. Nazarczuk & Marlena Cicha-Nazarczuk, 2021. "What are the Key Location Factors for Firms in Special Economic Zones? Evidence from Poland," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 147-160.
    2. Alexis Habiyaremye, 2020. "Fast tracking the SADC integration agenda to unlock regional collaboration gains along growth corridors in Southern Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-95, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Mwanda Phiri & Shimukunku Manchishi, 2020. "Special economic zones in Southern Africa: white elephants or latent drivers of growth and employment?: The case of Zambia and South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-160, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose & Federico Bartalucci & Susanne A. Frick & Amelia U. Santos‐Paulino & Richard Bolwijn, 2022. "The challenge of developing special economic zones in Africa: Evidence and lessons learnt," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 456-481, April.
    5. Abagna, Matthew Amalitinga, 2023. "Special Economic Zones and Local Economic Activities in Ethiopia," MPRA Paper 117427, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Xinyue Ye & Sergio Rey, 2013. "A framework for exploratory space-time analysis of economic data," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(1), pages 315-339, February.
    7. Kopczewska Katarzyna, 2019. "Can public intervention improve local public sector economic performance? The analysis of Special Economic Zones in Poland," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 6(53), pages 221-245, January.
    8. Maria O. Kakaulina & Dmitry R. Gorlov, 2022. "Assessment of the Impact of Tax Incentives on Investment Activity in Special Economic Zones of the Russian Federation," Journal of Applied Economic Research, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 21(2), pages 282-324.
    9. Xia, Ying & Chen, Muyang, 2023. "The Janus face of stateness: China's development-oriented equity investments in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    10. Ronald B. Davies & Rodolphe Desbordes, 2018. "Export Processing Zones and the Composition of Greenfield FDI," Working Papers 201807, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    11. Teresa Cheng, . "From special economic zones to greater special economic region – Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as a model for legal infrastructure design," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    12. Cornelius Dube & Wellington Matsika & Gamuchirai Chiwunze, 2020. "Special economic zones in Southern Africa: Is success influenced by design attributes?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-61, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Cheong, Tsun Se & Wu, Yanrui, 2018. "Convergence and transitional dynamics of China's industrial output: A county-level study using a new framework of distribution dynamics analysis," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 125-138.
    14. Ye, Xinyue & Yue, Wenze, 2014. "Comparative analysis of regional development: Exploratory space-time data analysis and open source implementation," Economics Discussion Papers 2014-20, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    15. Ding Nan & Pomi Shahbaz & Shamsheer ul Haq & Muhammad Nadeem & Muhammad Imran, 2023. "The Economies’ Ability to Produce Diversified and Complex Goods to Meet the Global Competition: Role of Gross Value Chain, Institutional Quality, and Human Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, April.
    16. Richard Kozul-Wright & Daniel Poon, 2018. "Asian development after the Asian Drama," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-135, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Anthony Harris & Anthony D'Agostino & Sara Litke-Farzaneh & Beryl Seiler & Matt Sloan, "undated". "Morocco Land Productivity Project: Evaluation Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports f3fc788501b64608b17e1cb23, Mathematica Policy Research.
    18. Carol Newman & John Page, 2017. "Industrial clusters: The case for Special Economic Zones in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 015, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Sarianna Lundan & Gunnar Leymann, . "Investing in sustainable infrastructure: new directions for international business research," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    20. Huiwen Gong & Robert Hassink & Cassandra Wang, 2021. "Strategic coupling and regional resilience in times of uncertainty: the industrial chain chief model in Zhejiang, China," PEGIS geo-disc-2021_06, Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Special Economic Zones; Spatial industrial policy; Growth; Best practice; Sustainability; Southern Africa;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2020-170. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.