africa

Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again?
Figure 16.5: Factors Most Negatively Affecting Lead Firms in Their Decision
to Include a Developing Country in Their Value Chain
Source: OECD-WTO (2013b).
At the same time, as suggested by Figure 16.3 above, the pay-offs for improvement
of these factors are higher in Africa than anywhere else in the world, reinforcing
hopes that capacity-building efforts in Africa will result in even faster growth and
global trade integration than in other regions.
16.4.2 Value chain resilience and external risks
GVCs have made international trade more volatile (Escaith and others, 2010): the
2008-09 crisis revealed a higher trade elasticity and exposure to imported crises
through trade. The 2011 triple disaster in Japan—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
accident—had severe effects not only on the Japanese economy but also on the
world economy, through disruptions in global production chains, particularly in sectors
such as automotive, computers, and consumer electronics in which downstream
producers rely heavily on Japanese suppliers of specialized parts and components
(New York Times, 2011). As a quasi-monopoly supplier of key technological products
for the electronics and automotive industries, Japan has a strategic position at the
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