industrialization in sub-saharan africa and import substitution policy ana pauLa F. MenDes MáriO a. BerteLLa ruDOLpH F. a. p. teixeira* This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the process of import substitution in Sub-Saharan Africa. The process of industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa occurred in two phases: a first step, even very early during the colonial regime began around the 1920s and ended in the late forties; a second phase of industrialization began in the late fifties and gained momentum in the sixties, when import substitution was implemented more widely. Although these countries were the last to embark on the strategy of import substitution, they followed the same steps of Latin American countries, and as the structural domestic and external constraints were too strong, the failure of the policy of import substitution arrived early and the negative impact on these economies had a greater magnitude.

After independence, Sub-Saharan Africa experienced a rapid succession of economic, social and political issues. The magnitude of this crisis has led to attempts by international organizations and political economists to explain with two prevailing approaches: an internalist one and an externalist one. The externalist perspective predominantly attributed the responsibility of this crisis to deteriorating terms of trade and the instability of international markets, while the internalist one blamed mainly local policies. The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in this literature, bringing the contribution of structural and historical factors. A weak institutional base, the low quality of human capital, and corruption created conditions for misguided sectoral strategies and unsustainable economic policies, making the productive sector unable to generate momentum in the economy and, therefore, producing economic and social stagnation in the region.